The Newt turned out to be a reincarnation of Hadspen House in Somerset, where Penelope Hobhouse used to live. It was not easy to get my head round the changes to the garden and, actually, the thing I liked most was the farm shop. But my visit was just before covid was invented, so I went back there earlier this year-this time, with three of my grandsons, who wanted to see the reconstructed Roman Villa.
Hadspen and I go back many years. The relics of Penelope's garden are still the best features. After she moved to nearby Tintinhull-which she resurrected with amazing energy and sensibility the walled garden at Hadspen was leased as a nursery to a rather fey Canadian couple called Nori and Sandra Pope. They transformed it into a living essay on the use of colour in the garden and wrote a classic book about their art. I don't think they made a lot of money from their nursery, but their borders were universally admired; Hadspen once again became the sort of place to which one took visitors who wanted to see the best of English gardening.
But when the Popes retired to Canada in 2005, Penelope's son, Niall Hobhouse, ploughed up the walled garden, wavered about re-letting it to tenants and, in 2013, sold the whole 850-acre estate.
This story is from the October 12, 2022 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October 12, 2022 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
