Melbourne Hall
A Derbyshire Sleeping Beauty
21 August 2023
By: James Lennox
Take one oh-so fashionable French ground plan; add plenty of evergreens, statues and water; stir together and allow to simmer on a back burner. Neglect benignly for 150 years. Return, reduce to a manageable size, check for seasonal interest and serve to grateful visitors with a side helping of specimen trees and shrubs and a brand new herbaceous streamside.
That’s the recipe for success at Melbourne Hall. Not easy to emulate, I admit, but garden gems rarely are. Originally laid out as a very mini-Versailles in 1700 by its owner Thomas Coke (Queen Anne’s Vice-Chamberlain), ably assisted by George London and Henry Wise, further groundworks were carried out in 1704, with the final flourishes being supplied soon after. Much like Duncombe Park, the garden escaped the landscape revolution of the later eighteenth century, in this case retaining its parterres, pools, fountains, allées and structural planting until its early twentieth century “rediscovery”.
By which point, plants being plants, things had got slightly out of hand. Cue much hacking back, reinstating and taming, all carried out with a remarkably light touch. The allées radiating from the main circular pool and the patte d’oie were still in situ, but the once-pleached trees had been allowed to grow freely.
As had the yew hedging lining the north and south edges of the parterres, around the curve of the basin and along one of the grass walks. After a sensitive rejuvenation, the yews are one of the outstanding features of the garden, sculpted into billowing cloud formations, straight lines a distant memory.
The high-maintenance, overgrown parterres were removed and replaced by three tiered grass lawns. If anything, this simplification serves to highlight further the irregularity of the yews on either side, in particular the yew tunnel, originally an arbour trained over wooden frames now a delightfully gnarled and atmospheric walk.
All of which underlines the general shift in garden fashion that took place while the garden at Melbourne Hall was slumbering. The regimented, formal Continental style gave way to a particularly English sense of informality, the general trend being towards naturalism, allowing trees to grow with minimal intervention, but occasionally exercising control to vary forms and textures for aesthetic reasons instead of as mere demonstrations of horticultural skill.
Set against this green backdrop are contemporaneous lead figures produced at John Van Nost’s Haymarket sculpture yard. The disputatious fraternal relationship between Castor and Pollux is the subject of four groups, while Mercury, Perseus and Andromeda surround the basin.
His most eye-catching work here is undoubtedly the great lead urn representing the Four Seasons, from which radiate various avenues of lime trees. Swags of fruit, playful monkeys, four finely modelled heads representing the seasons all brought to life on my visit by a swarm of bees working its way inside. The perfect feature for the rond-point in the grove.
Unfortunately for Van Nost, his superb leadwork risks being continually upstaged by Robert Bakewell’s ironwork in the arbour, or Birdcage, from 1706. Constructed in a forge on site, it’s an elaborate piece of treillage, with panels of scrollwork and wrought foliage surmounted by a lantern (added in 1711). An exquisite focal point for the original part of the garden.
With so much first-class sculpture, original planting and a historic layout, Melbourne Hall would warrant a visit for such elements alone. But there’s more, and it’s really rather good.
Owners of historic gardens must be forever torn between the obligation to preserve the best of the past and the desire to leave their own mark on the place. How much should be kept frozen in time? How much innovation would be appropriate? Gardeners, in common with other artists, have an urge to create. We admire what’s gone before but we don’t necessarily want to stick rigidly to someone else’s concept, never deviating from a pre-ordained plan.
Sensitivity is key. In the oldest part of the garden, on the lawns leading down to the basin and the Birdcage, symmetrical pairs of Indian bean trees (Catalpa bignonioides) frame the grassy expanses. Four recently planted swamp cypresses (Taxodium distichum var. imbricarium ‘Nutans’) line the basin. Favourite trees of mine, but also historically nuanced eighteenth century introductions from North America.
In the southern extension of the garden, in the compartments created by the yew-lined allées, variations on a theme play out, with rare Asian limes and hornbeams referencing the original pleached European species. North American trees also feature here, including the hybrid tulip tree, Liriodendron ‘Chapel Hill’, another inventive twist.
None of this new planting detracts at all from the original design of the area, the circular fountain half-way between the basin and the Four Seasons urn still dominating, with cross-alleys leading off to further fountains among thickly planted trees. Circular ponds and yew-lined garden rooms seem to be a design motif that just keeps on giving, as any good Arts & Crafts-era garden creator could tell you.
But what to do with an awkward corner that had never been incorporated into the original eighteenth century plan? Extend the allées and compartments and create a more-of-the-same pastiche, or try something different? What a relief, and what a success, that the owners went with the second option.
Tying the new to the old is water. Where the rest of the garden uses water formally in geometric ponds, here it’s allowed to flow through a lush vale of bright mixed planting, with the only significant splash of herbaceous material in the entire garden.
In sharp contrast to the older, almost exclusively green section of the garden, here the stream divides whites, yellows and blues on one side from pinks and reds on the other. As any general worth his salt will tell you, it’s not how many troops you have, it’s how you deploy them that matters. It’s not a large area but the ligularias, primulas, thalictrums, geraniums, rodgersias, kirengeshomas, echinaceas, anemones are all beautifully combined with perfectly controlled colour shifts.
And as if that weren’t enough, there’s a stunning Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’ leading the eye across the stream, through the herbaceous border and to the 300-year-old yew hedge that forms the backdrop to the whole scene. A skilful and bold move where most historic, green-heavy gardens would have been tempted to shunt the flowers into a walled garden.
The lessons I took away with me? Keep it simple - if there’s one thing the English eighteenth century garden can teach us, it’s that green on green with a couple of water features and an urn or two can work wonders. Even if you inherit a historic gem, don’t be afraid to write the next chapter in the story. And above all, hedges don’t have to be straight - put down the shears for a hundred years and just see what happens.
More information here: https://www.melbournehall.com/
