The Laskett

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Julia Trevelyan Oman, national gardens scheme, Sir Cecil Beaton, Sir Roy Strong, The Laskett

A statue of Britannia – The Laskett

The Laskett is tucked away down a Herefordshire lane. We’ve driven past here before but we had no idea what lay behind the tall hedges of brambles and ivy, and it’s not what you would expect to find here among the rolling hills, orchards and pastures of such a rural county. For thirty years the gardens at The Laskett were the creation of Sir Roy Strong and his late wife, Julia Trevelyan Oman. She was a celebrated set designer working for TV, film, opera and ballet, he is an author and one time director of the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Italianate gardens with nods to early English gardens and a theatrical theme running throughout were created from scratch, carved from simple bare fields surrounding the house. Julia died in 2003 and there was a period where the gardens remained untouched, but in recent years the gardens have been subject to a programme of renewal which is ongoing.

Snapshots – Windows in the hedging – The Laskett

I had very little knowledge of the gardens, to be honest it came as a bit of a surprise when I came across The Laskett and realised that we lived so close by. Generally you can only visit as part of a group but a few weekends ago the gardens were open as part of the National Gardens Scheme. I deliberately didn’t read anything about the garden before we went. I wanted to go there without preconceptions or expectations. I’d caught a glimpse or two from the website when checking the location, so had an idea that it would be theatrical, but other than that it would be a surprise and hopefully a pleasant one. Coming across a formal garden, statuary and topiary isn’t unusual in rural parts but they tend to come with a grand entrance and an even grander house. Both of these features set the scene and expectations. The Laskett has the surprise element because it lacks this grandness. That isn’t meant as a criticism, in fact in my opinion it’s a plus. It’s the sort of setting where you would expect to find a cottage garden wrapped around the house, instead I felt as if I had been transported to a villa outside Rome, which was the real joy of this garden. The early autumn sunshine helped somewhat but it was easy to forget I was in Herefordshire. There were follies, temples, statues and vast urns but it takes much more than a few urns and statues to convince someone they’re in Italy.

The Laskett

This is a garden that has been made by people with a great eye for detail but also for the bigger picture. The vistas which have been created by the paths and hedges dividing the garden have created living set designs. It’s very easy to see how Julia’s work on large productions for ballets and operas have translated into the creation of The Laskett. It makes for an incredibly photogenic garden and a very pleasing space to spend time.

Knot garden in front of the house – The Laskett

Initially, I was bit underwhelmed when we first entered the garden. The path takes you into an area in front of the house with a topiary knot garden which, although perfectly fine, just didn’t have a great deal of impact for me. Off to one side of the house was an area under reconstruction. I’ll admit that ten minutes or so into the visit I was wondering if this was it but then we followed the path around the side of the house and that’s when the element of surprise really hits.

The Silver Jubilee Garden – The Laskett

If a garden is about expressing the personality and passions of the owner/s then The Laskett certainly does that. Many of the structures and plants commemorate people and periods in the lives of both Roy and Julia – there’s an arbour for Sir Frederick Ashton, a choreographer for the Royal Ballet for whom Julia designed sets and a sundial from Sir Cecil Beaton’s garden, marking their friendship. Most of us can’t name drop knights of the realm but it’s easy to relate to wanting our gardens to reflect our lives, particularly if we’ve lived somewhere for a long time. Reading about the garden afterwards I discovered that certain plants around the gardens held special memories. There is a quince tree which grew from a cutting taken from a tree growing in Julia’s grandfather’s garden; rosemary, which could be found dotted about the garden had strong family connections too. I think most of us have plants in our gardens which we’ve inherited or been given as a present. For me gardens designed by a designer for a client so often feel a little sterile because they lack these personal connections and touches.

The structural planting of pruned yew, box and beech form the backbone of the garden. There are some fabulous specimen trees including an Acer griseum whose copper-coloured peeling bark glowed in the early autumn light. The majority of the planting comprises shrubs and seasonal highlights. It’s quite traditional in many ways and follows the Italian style of planting which relies on structure rather than colourful plants. Changes can be seen though – the new border was a riot of colour in early September with prairie-style plants in full bloom.

Structure from topiary – The Laskett

If you described a garden to someone as set in rural Herefordshire but designed on Italianate principles, which had a ‘Triumphal Arch’, a colonaded temple to provide shelter when having tea and cake and a life size stag statue with gilded antlers they would be forgiven for thinking it would be like a theme park. The Laskett isn’t. It’s somewhere that feels like a genuine expression of the lives of two people who had an immense passion for the place, a garden which has been created with love and which has given immense pleasure in return.

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Tea, Cake and Someone Else’s Garden

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Country Life Magazine, Crocus, Kentchurch Court, national gardens scheme, NGS, Noel Kingsbury, Piet Oudolf, Tom Stuart-Smith, University of Sheffield Landscape Department

I love my tea; I’m quite partial to a slice of cake now and again and I have to admit I do like a nosey around other people’s gardens. Combine them all and I’m like a pig in the proverbial. So, whenever possible, I try to visit an NGS garden where I can indulge in all three and, even better, the money I spend goes to charity.

The National Gardens Scheme (NGS) started in 1927 as an idea to raise money for the Queen’s Nursing Institute. Private gardens would open for the charge of a ‘shilling a head’ and the public would get the opportunity to visit gardens that would otherwise be out of bounds. In the first year 609 gardens opened and by 1931 it was proving so popular that Country Life magazine published a guide-book to the gardens that would open. The ‘Yellow Book’ as it became known, after its colourful cover, now contains over 3700 gardens that open, raising over £2.5 million for selected charities every year.

Persicaria – a classic naturalistic plant

The joy of the NGS is the wide and varied choice of gardens on offer. There are larger gardens which are often already open to the public which donate the admission fee on these days to charity, there are gardens created by renowned garden designers, the personal gardens of these renowned garden designers, creekside cottage gardens in Cornwall, gardens famous for their snowdrops, gardens created by alpine lovers, and gardens high up in the Pennines.

We have visited a few gardens locally to us over the years. There was Meadow Cottage in the Forest of Dean which was a third of an acre and packed with beautiful plants. Kentchurch Court on the Herefordshire/Monmouthshire border has been lived in continuously for more than a thousand years by the Scudamore family and is surrounded by 25 acres of beautiful gardens and woodland. Brockhampton Cottage, the garden of Peter Clay, the co- founder of Crocus, was designed by Tom Stuart Smith the multi-gold medal winner from RHS Chelsea. Then, a couple of weekends ago, we made a trip to the garden of Noel Kingsbury in Herefordshire. Noel is a garden writer, designer and lecturer best known for his ideas on naturalistic planting approaches to garden design. He is a lecturer at the University of Sheffield in the Landscape Department which is building quite a reputation for innovative approaches to our urban spaces. Noel has also collaborated with the designer Piet Oudolf on two books. I’m a big fan of Oudolf’s planting ideas and the opportunity to visit a garden which was similar in ethos was too good to miss.

Noel Kingsbury’s Garden

So often gardens open to the public are not gardens of an individual and are managed by a team of people, the great thing about the NGS is it gives us the opportunity to experience personal gardens and the idiosyncracies in them. Noel’s garden was packed with spirit and personality. He’s obviously a keen traveller which was evident with the yurt, Balinese flags and statues dotted about the garden. There were pots and tables decorated with broken pots and china and small woven willow decorations placed throughout the herbaceous borders and meadow. The garden had a real sense of place sitting comfortably in the local landscape. Noel likes to experiment with the blending and blurring of the line between garden and nature. The more cultivated area of the top part of the garden was planted with persicarias, grasses and sanguisorba, amongst others, taking its influence from nature. Paths meandered down to two ponds and then to a meadow area where the garden and surrounding countryside seemed to merge. Teeming with bees and butterflies the garden appeared to be a haven for wildlife. There were bee hives, a small orchard, chickens and a veg growing area and it felt like a garden of someone with a strong connection to the land.

The Pavillion

I loved his ‘Pavillion’ with its green roof which is used as accommodation for B&B guests but would also make the most amazing place to write. Although, whether you’d actually get much done whilst staring out, onto the garden, is another matter. The slope below the pavillion smelt wonderful with the lavender emitting its essential oils into the muggy air. There was a particularly impressive patch of hollyhocks, towering above me, and swaying in the light breeze; they were like a plant version of his Balinese flags. Not exactly in keeping with the naturalistic planting of other parts of the garden, I liked how, although he obviously has strong ideas about design and planting, there are plants which find their way into the garden even if they don’t necessarily fit.

Hollyhocks

There was squash envy, as I compared my own pathetic plants and my two  measly squashes to his abundance of them.

Squash Envy

I love naturalistic planting but for me elements of Noel’s garden were a little too loose. I personally would like a bit more structure from trees and shrubs. However, that is the joy of visiting other people’s gardens it gives us the chance to see how others use and see the space they have in front of them.

It might be the end of August but there are still plenty of opportunities over the next couple of months to visit some fascinating gardens and of course eat lots of cake. This Sunday, for instance, blogger Victoria’s Backyard opens up her garden in London, on September 2nd Peter Clay, co-founder of Crocus will invite visitors to Brockhampton Cottage and on the same day it’s possible to visit the Pretoria Road allotments in Bristol. The NGS have a great website so it’s really easy to find a garden to visit. I’d love to hear about any NGS favourites of your own.