Senior gardener Philip Bowell started work at Hidcote Manor in Gloucestershire in 1974. “I came walking down that hillside there as a schoolboy, and I could see this garden beneath me, with all these high green hedges. I didn’t know what it was, but I thought what a wonderful place it must be.” Sarah Malleson is one of the latest recruits. “I was staying in Chipping Campden and cycled past and was bowled over by it. I decided there and then that I had to work here.” Now a trainee, Malleson is part of a team of nine led by head gardener Glyn Jones, which, in 2002, embarked upon the restoration of the garden’s ten and a half acres.
Jones first saw Hidcote which celebrates its 100th birthday this year and is, for many, the quintessential English garden at the age of 19. He, too, was wowed by it: the detail of the planting, the plant collection, its position (at 600ft, it is the second-highest garden owned by the National Trust). “I worked at Tintinhull and Peckover House, but kept coming back to Hidcote for inspiration.
In 1999, this job came up and I was ready for a challenge,” he says. “And what a challenge it proved to be!” Hidcote had been given to the National Trust by its creator Lawrence Johnston in 1948 — the first garden to be accepted on its own merits rather than simply as an adjunct to a house — but without an endowment for its upkeep. For 50 years, it had gone steadily downhill: plants had been lost, areas had become overgrown, structures such as the Plant House (where Johnston kept tender plants brought back from expeditions to China and South
Africa) and the Alpine Terrace (where he trialled others for hardiness) had fallen into disrepair and been demolished. Worse still, his detailed records had vanished. “The first job was to do the research,” says Jones. “The second was to find a benefactor.” Graham Pearson, historian and archivist, was among the small army of volunteer gardeners and garden stewards recruited by Jones and property manager Mike Beeston in 2001. In the absence of Johnston’s records, it has been the patient detective work of Pearson and his wife Susan that has underpinned the restoration.
An anonymous donor came forward in 2002 with an offer of £250,000 and this was matched by The National Trust. Since then, a further matched offer has brought the total to £3.7 million. So far, this has paid for the restoration of the Mirror Pool, the reconstruction of the first phase of the Plant House, the reinstatement of the Alpine Terrace with its removable roof, the restoration of Mrs Winthrop’s Garden (Winthrop was Johnston’s formidable mother who bought Hidcote as a windswept farm in 1907), the replanting of the Pillar Garden, the renovation of the Rock Bank, and much else besides.
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It hasn’t all been plain sailing. The Plant House was renamed “The Colander” within weeks of being finished. “It was our first big project using outside contractors,” says Glyn Jones. “The putty round the windows cracked and there were leaks everywhere. All the plants had to be taken out again and the whole thing reglazed.” But there have also been amazing strokes of luck. Sarah Malleson has been working on the restoration of the East Court.
It was known from contemporaneous magazine articles that it had cobbled paths and square beds edged with variegated euonymus, but it was not until a visitor arrived last summer with early photographs that the exact arrangement became clear. Then, at Jones’ suggestion, Malleson had a rummage around in the Old Orchard, where he thought spare materials might have been stored, and came across what she thinks may be the original cobbles. They have been reinstated in their original positions.
The attention to detail is astonishing. Gordon Shanks, himself once a trainee at Hidcote, is now one of the three senior gardeners. One of his challenges has been the restoration of the brick paving in Mrs Winthrop’s Garden. “I put a couple of the bricks in the boot of my car, and wherever I went, if I saw an old building, out I would go with my brick, trying to match it for size, colour and age!” One of the most complicated projects has been the restoration of the Rock Bank by Vicky Cody, the third of the senior gardeners. Designed to simulate the planting of the Alpes Maritimes, it had become totally overgrown, the rockwork had crumbled and the glacial melt-water stream had been obscured.
The bank was cleared of shrubs by Eric Fabricius — with James Evans, the strongman of the garden. Then the scree had to be removed and trees hacked back before new rocks, each weighing several tons, could be lowered into position. Plants were sourced from Lamberton Nursery in Scotland, where they’re collected in the wild like those brought back to Hidcote in Johnston’s day what Jones calls “plants with a story”.
Hidcote’s own story is continuing to develop. Part of Jones’ vision for Hidcote is to re-establish it, not only as a world-class garden, but as a centre of horticultural education — a second trainee, Sarah Davis, was taken on last year, and a third joins the staff this summer. It is a place where everyone can find something to inspire them. On the day I was there, an overalled emeritus professor of civil engineering was weeding a flowerbed, and the children of the local primary school were discovering Hidcote for the first time. As for Bowell, he is about to embark on the restoration of the Wilderness. “We’re planting new trees, taking the garden forward into the next century. That should be exciting. I still love working here, even after 33 years. Says everything, doesn’t it?”
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Hidcote Manor Garden (01386 438333; www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hidcote).
Hidcote: the Garden and Lawrence Johnston by Graham Pearson is published by the National Trust and available from BooksFirst, priced £22.50 (RRP £25), with free p&p. Call 0870 1608080 or visit timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy