Our outing today was to Great Dixter, a marvellous house and garden that was bought and created by Nathanial Lloyd and his family from 1910 on. The original manor house dated back to the mid fifteenth century, and was added to by the architect, Edwin Lutyens, who joined a reassembled 16th Century timber house on and created some further rooms in a sympathetic style. One of the first tasks was to take out the floor and partitions and restore the great hall in the original house, although a fireplace in one end replaced the hearth in the centre of the room.
Lutyens also designed the gardens, which embrace the house on all sides and which were the special love of Daisy Lloyd, who established sections for meadow flowers that were not mowed over summer. Unusually, there are signs that say ‘Don’t walk on the long grass’, making sure that the rare orchids and other natives to the area are not trampled on. Daisy and Nathanial Lloyd had six children and it was the youngest, Christopher, who went on to study horticulture and to make the gardens his life’s work.
One of the charms of the house is that it is clearly a home, with the furniture collected by Nathaniel and Daisy being outstanding pieces from different eras, but not treated like a museum collection, and with Christopher having added beautiful and functional modern items. When we visited, very knowledgeable volunteers told us about the various pieces and always included things like ‘Daisy would sit here to do her embroidery’ or ‘Nathaniel was so inspired by Lutyens that he taught himself to be an architect and this is the sloping table that he worked away at his plans on.’ I could imagine the six stepping-stone-aged children racing about the hall or playing board games in the parlour.
Outside we walked through garden rooms, some hedged by yews in curves and straight lines and others by walls, tall plants or ancient barns. A team of young people buzzed away restoring the topiary squirrels and birds which were once of many types but now mostly resemble peacocks. Horticultural students can apply to work with the team of experienced gardeners here, and have lodgings in the section of the house that is not open to the public. They come from all over the world.
The gardens are an absolute riot of colour, with the old rules of graduating heights for borders being ignored where a new arrangement provides for the plants’ needs and makes a striking effect. Foliage is an important feature and gives structure and contrast to the plantings. I eavesdropped on two gardeners cogitating over a change in planting and was amazed at all the issues that they were considering.
A large vegetable garden with flower beds incorporated into it suggested that some companion planting might be intended, although it would be impossible to imagine any section of this garden that didn’t work vivid colours into the design.
We easily could have spent more time in the gardens, and felt a little rushed at the end when all the last visitors were being ushered out for closing time. We had not noticed that we had missed lunch, but suddenly we were all starving so we stopped off at a village for some chips and a vegieburger. Our evening was spent poring over Stefan’s photo albums and hearing more family and personal stories.We had our breakfast at a little table on the grass, enjoying the mild weather and the lovely country atmosphere. Stefan crossed the river for some exercises and a walk, bringing back blackberries for us lazy ones to gobble up.
Our outing today was to Great Dixter, a marvellous house and garden that was bought and created by Nathanial Lloyd and his family from 1910 on. The original manor house dated back to the mid fifteenth century, and was added to by the architect, Edwin Lutyens, who joined a reassembled 16th Century timber house on and created some further rooms in a sympathetic style. One of the first tasks was to take out the floor and partitions and restore the great hall in the original house, although a fireplace in one end replaced the hearth in the centre of the room.
Lutyens also designed the gardens, which embrace the house on all sides and which were the special love of Daisy Lloyd, who established sections for meadow flowers that were not mowed over summer. Unusually, there are signs that say ‘Don’t walk on the long grass’, making sure that the rare orchids and other natives to the area are not trampled on. Daisy and Nathanial Lloyd had six children and it was the youngest, Christopher, who went on to study horticulture and to make the gardens his life’s work.
One of the charms of the house is that it is clearly a home, with the furniture collected by Nathaniel and Daisy being outstanding pieces from different eras, but not treated like a museum collection, and with Christopher having added beautiful and functional modern items. When we visited, very knowledgeable volunteers told us about the various pieces and always included things like ‘Daisy would sit here to do her embroidery’ or ‘Nathaniel was so inspired by Lutyens that he taught himself to be an architect and this is the sloping table that he worked away at his plans on.’ I could imagine the six stepping-stone-aged children racing about the hall or playing board games in the parlour.
Outside we walked through garden rooms, some hedged by yews in curves and straight lines and others by walls, tall plants or ancient barns. A team of young people buzzed away restoring the topiary squirrels and birds which were once of many types but now mostly resemble peacocks. Horticultural students can apply to work with the team of experienced gardeners here, and have lodgings in the section of the house that is not open to the public. They come from all over the world.
The gardens are an absolute riot of colour, with the old rules of graduating heights for borders being ignored where a new arrangement provides for the plants’ needs and makes a striking effect. Foliage is an important feature and gives structure and contrast to the plantings. I eavesdropped on two gardeners cogitating over a change in planting and was amazed at all the issues that they were considering.
A large vegetable garden with flower beds incorporated into it suggested that some companion planting might be intended, although it would be impossible to imagine any section of this garden that didn’t work vivid colours into the design.
We easily could have spent more time in the gardens, and felt a little rushed at the end when all the last visitors were being ushered out for closing time. We had not noticed that we had missed lunch, but suddenly we were all starving so we stopped off at a village for some chips and a vegieburger. Our evening was spent poring over Stefan’s photo albums and hearing more family and personal stories.
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