Garden Portrait: Hestercombe Edwardian Formal Garden

When I visit a garden I do so for several reasons – to have a walk in a beautiful place and to admire the planting schemes. When I was without a garden for ten years I used to dream of what I would do when I eventually had one again, filling folders with photos of borders and flowers for inspiration. So when we stopped at Hestercombe although we headed into the landscape garden first to have a good long walk around the grounds,  what I was mostly looking forward to was the Edwardian garden designed by one of my favourite garden designers.

Hestercombe’s Edwardian Garden, designed by Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens, was completed in 1908 and is world famous.  The restoration of the gardens began in the 1970s and was completed by 1980.

There is a large Dutch garden at the east end of the site, with intermingled perennials such as China Rose, fuchsia, and dwarf lavender. Daisy strewn steps led us up  whilst cherubs played their instruments above the terrace and on the urns in the garden.

The beautiful Orangery is now often used for weddings and was indeed being set up for one on our visit. They had a perfect day for it.

We continued through into the East Rill terrace through pillars and walls cloaked in clematis and fragrant wisteria.

Clematis

Here we were faced with the view of the Great Plat – a great sunken parterre laid out with geometric borders edged with stone and ringed with luxuriant bergenia.This formal garden epitomises Lutyens’ classical style with Jekyll’s planting scheme softening the hard lines. It is stunning.

The East and West Rill terraces frame this garden each with a 43-metre rill that runs from a hemispherical dipping pool fed by a water spout to a rectangular water tank at the southern end of the garden.

East Rill terrace

Iris

One of the hemispherical dipping pools

A 70m long oak Pergola runs the length of the Plat and encloses the garden at the bottom allowing it to remain linked to and be part of the surrounding countryside.

Azalea

Clematis

Doorways and archways through the walls lead you up and down steps to the various parts of the garden.

And at the bottom is the Pergola, a wonderful walkway full of roses and clematis and those magnificent views.

West Rill Terrace and Pergola

Much of the Formal Garden is built of the grey siltstone: the paving is of morte slate, and also the walling, which is laid in narrow courses with lime mortar raked well back to give the impression of drystone walling.

Great Plat

A third terrace, the Grey Walk, borders the northern edge of the Plat.

The House, the Victorian Terrace and the West Rill hemispherical dipping pool

Leaving the pergola we continued along the West Rill towards the Victorian terrace and the house, which affords the best views over the garden and those distant Blackdown hills.

Victorian Terrace

The magnificent Daisy Steps were designed by Lutyens to link the formal garden and the earlier Georgian Landscape Garden.

Daisy Steps

And now we were back at the entrance and ready for a decent lunch in the Stables courtyard before continuing on our journey home.

Jo’s Monday Walk