Hill Garden In Wilkshire

2023 Author: Ashton Daniels | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 17:13

Heale Gardens is located in the quietest countryside north of Salisbury in Wilkeshire. Like many other famous gardens in Great Britain, it was formed over the centuries around a house built in the second half of the 16th century in a picturesque place, in the bend of the Avon River. This house was destined to go down in history because in October 1651 the King of England Charles II Stuart hid in it for several days before sailing to France, where he fled under the onslaught of Cromwell's speech.

Heale house

Until 1835, when the house was significantly damaged by fire, it was owned by three names in succession, and the fourth owner bought the surviving third of the house.

The history of the estate garden dates back to 1894, when the estate was acquired by Louis Greville. First of all, he took up the renovation of the house and, with great taste, expanded it to the east and north, while maintaining the general architectural style. The Greville family coat of arms appeared on the building - a swan sitting over a crown. It is also repeated at the entrance gates and on the ceilings of some rooms inside the house. Now the route of visiting the garden runs so that the house becomes visible almost at the end of the excursion.

In 1906, the landscape architect Harold Peto, already well-known by that time, was invited to work on the garden. A fan of the Italian Renaissance, he did not rebuild the walls and paving, which had been touched by time, as he loved the romantic ruins. His merit is the classic garden elements in his favorite Italian style.

First we find ourselves in a tunnel, or kitchen garden, fenced on three sides and located on the terrace. It is divided into four parts, in the tradition of the Middle Ages. Three of the rectangular quarters of the kitchen garden are dedicated to vegetable garden and useful plants, and one is a lawn with a circular pergola formed from pear trees and palmettes made from apple, pear and fig trees along brick and cobblestone walls lined with colorful mixborders.

Kitchen garden

A quarter occupied by a lawn and a gazebo

Gazebo made of pears

The central axis is a long tunnel of pear and apple cordons, interrupted by a central basin with a water lily in the center, surrounded by large caps of eight sheared box trees. Now the trees have almost faded, but you can imagine what a heavenly look this building will have in late summer - early autumn, when it will be hung with ripe apples and pears. Inside the berso there are mixborders of cold-resistant plants - tulips, white-bordered host, aquilegia, lungwort, snake mountaineer.

Apple and pear tunnel

Mixborders in the tunnel

Swimming pool in the center of the Kitchen Garden

This garden is not only decorative, but also a help in the household, supplying fruits and vegetables to the table, as well as fragrant bouquets of sweet peas, which they like to put in the house. The grand long pergola, which runs along the entire kitchen garden, is simply delightful, all in the hanging inflorescences of bean, purple and white wisteria. In the central part of the pergola grows aquebia five with small fragrant purple flowers and an original rose with simple white flowers 'Coopers Burmese'. The pergola somewhat hides the garden from the view from the southern, landscape side, replacing the fence. Along it there is a mowed lawn path, emphasized by mixborders of irises, herbaceous and tree peonies, poppies, milkweed and other plants, and below - by a low brick retaining wall.

Pergola along the Kitchen Garden

Leaving through the central openwork wrought-iron gates, we find ourselves in the Sunny Garden. There is a sundial surrounded by the blue 'Six Hills Giant' catnip. Around - cottage mixborders of delphiniums, digitalis, roses, primroses. The old-timer of the garden grows nearby - mulberry, which is more than a hundred years old - it is carefully trimmed with pruning in order to preserve the symmetry and stability of the tree.

Exit to the Sunny Garden

Sunny garden

Louis Greville (1856-1941) served as Second Secretary of the British Embassy in Tokyo. After returning home impressed by Japanese culture, he set about creating a Japanese Garden on his estate. In 1901, even before Harold Peto was invited, the idea was embodied in the graceful red Nikko bridge, now entwined with Chinese wisteria, and a Japanese teahouse. This 8-walled teahouse is one of the few in the UK.

The Nikko bridge and the roof of the teahouse behind it

Tea house. Photo by Andrey Lysikov

To implement his plan, the owner involved four Japanese artisans and gardeners. It was decided to build a tea house above the water, at the confluence of two water streams, disturbing the peace of this part of the garden remote from the house with the beauty of sounds and views of boiling water.

Some trees around are still left from those times: Japanese cherry trees and maples, Styrax liquidambar, tulip tree, Japanese scarlet (the second largest in Europe). Only two Soulange magnolias have recently been planted - white and pink. White grows not far from the teahouse, and pink grows next to bamboos, on the banks of an irrigation canal dug by Dutch engineers back in the 16th century with a channel lined with stone slabs.

Magnolia Soulange and bamboo

Coastal canal vegetation

Of the perennials in this part of the garden, Gunners, Rogers, irises, hosts, Japanese primroses, Camassia Leuchtlin, American lisichiton, Ethiopian calla, various types of ferns, picturesquely framing the water arms, have perfectly taken root. They are crossed in many places by simple wooden bridges with railings made of poles. One of them is completely covered with Japanese honeysuckle in yellow buds.

Japanese honeysuckle on the bridge

Greville installed a temple lantern in the clearing, which he brought when he left Japan. It has been standing here since the end of the 19th century.

Japanese lantern

On a bend in the Avon River to the east of the house, on a hill, Peto created a paved walled terrace with Italian-style balustrades (Knap Terrace). It can be accessed from a croquet area surrounded by sheared yews. The fencing of the croquet area outside is decorated with curly honeysuckle and ancient fragrant musk roses, among them - Felicia, the flowering of which sometimes drags on here until winter. One of the sides of the fence is lined with a continuous strip of large-flowered catnip. On the other side, facing the house, irises are planted to match the brickwork of the building.

Entrance to the croquet court

Sheared yews

Croquet area opposite the house

From the terrace you can see a series of handsome plane trees on the shore. One of the trees is almost entirely covered with a network of mountain clematis, which has reached the very top of the tree. On the horizontal stone steps at the very edge of the water there is an inscription addressed to the Avon River: "Carries the Moon, carries the Sun, but leaves nothing." The balusters and gate posts in the garden have retained Peto's original design.

Knap terrace

Clematis mountain and plane trees

One of the old garden trees

David and Anne Rush, who have lived here since 1959, brought the garden in line with Harold Peto's designs and added new elements.

Mixed landings opposite the stables

Lady Anne simplified the Peto-era grasses in front of the stables and created mixed plantings, including musk roses along the croquet lawn and some structured woody shrubs in the Sun Garden, such as Royal Purple and Aurea mockweed.

Musk roses

Hoizia triple Sundance

Chubushnik Aurea

For their descendants, the current owners of the estate, Louis Greville is already a great-great-uncle. In order to diversify the large paving area on the south side of the house, three wisterias have recently been planted, and cuffs, wormwood, Karvinsky's small petals, and meadow geranium have settled in the cracks between the stones. The plans are to restore plantings on the lawn south of the house, by the river, according to the preserved plan of Peto.

They love their garden, which has been very picturesque since February, still devoid of the excesses of summer, when the structural silhouettes of the plantings are lined with primroses carpets. During this period, the romantic idyll of a corner seemingly untouched by time intensifies.

View of the surroundings

In autumn, the green monochrome of the garden is replaced at first by pastel colors, then bronze and purple colors come into play, and finally, in October, comes an energetic crescendo of amber, bronze, gold, scarlet and orange flowers in the foliage of poplars, maples, oaks, chestnuts, tulip trees.