Temple Dinsley’s gardens - the Rose Garden
While studying for a gardening qualification, I was amazed to
discover that there was an extant example of garden design
doyen, Gertrude Jekyll’s, work at Temple Dinsley.
In Gardens of a Golden Afternoon - the story of a partnership:
Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll (1982), Jane Brown wrote,
‘Jekyll’s inspiration...carried on to another good brick
garden, with elaborate terraces at Temple Dinsley near
Hitchin’.
Brown added that as at that year, there were twenty-four
‘saveable’ Jekyll gardens and that one of the ‘hallowed two
dozen’ was Temple Dinsley ‘for its rose garden and elegant
brickwork’.
The book included a photograph (shown right). Looking at this
image of a rundown garden house which had been used as a
potato store (with no rose garden in sight) and the use of the
word ‘saveable’, one might be forgiven the thought that in 1982
the rose garden at Temple Dinsley was in a poor state and
desperately in need of sympathetic restoration and therefore it was better no up-to-date photograph
was used.
However, as we shall see, further investigations and analysis have questioned the extent of Jekyll’s
involvement with Temple Dinsley.
Re: Sir Edwin Luyens and Gertrude Jekyll
Firstly, some background information about the Lutyens and
Jekyll partnership. The exceptional architectural design work of
Lutyens has been featured elsewhere on this web site (Link:
Lutyens) so we will concentrate here on a brief resume of Miss
Jekyll’s career. She was born from a ‘comfortable background’ at
London in 1843. Her paternal grandfather was a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Arts. Her mother was a pupil of Mendelssohn. In
view of this pedigree it is unsurprising that she enrolled at the
South Kensington School of Art to study painting where she was
influenced by William Morris, studied colour theory and
embraced the Arts and Crafts Movement.
However, the poor eyesight of myopia forced Jekyll to exchange
her palette of paints for one of perennials. She shaped a
legendary garden at Munstead Wood in Surrey, fell under the
spell of gardening guru, William Robinson (there was to be a
spectacular and public ‘falling out’ between the two) and
contributed to The Garden magazine.
Her interest was in the country way of life which she observed
near her home - in particular, the unsophisticated cottage
gardens (see painting above right) - and she took many of her
gardening ideas from these rural plots, blending them with her
artistic leanings.
In 1889, Jekyll (right), now forty-five years old, commissioned the
young architect, Edwin Lutyens (20), to build her home at
Munstead Wood. This spawned a collaboration that was to
prosper for twenty years. Their mutual love of using traditional
materials produced the breathtaking combination of Lutyens’
planning garden layouts as a formal-classic, geometrical
extension of the house, giving the impression of outdoor ‘rooms’
and Jekyll’s planting schemes which used herbaceous material
and non-exotic trees and shrubs.
So the rigid skeletal structure - the stonework and paving -
provided by the architect was softened and complemented by the
balance and plantings, the scale and colour of the artist. A
“Lutyens’ house with a Jekyll garden” was the epitome of good
taste.
Many of Jekyll’s plans exist in document collections. Her crabby handwriting (which was not intended
to be publicly displayed) may be difficult to decipher and the plant names she uses may have
changed, but from these designs it is possible to recreate her gardens today. Some of her rose
plantings are softened with stachys and roses were often the only plants in the peripheral beds.
Below is an example of the Jekyll/Lutyens alliance - Hestercombe in Somerset. Note the type of
paving employed and the pergola. There are echoes of this style at Temple Dinsley.
The route whereby Lutyens was introduced to the Fenwicks at Temple Dinsley is easy to plot. Herbert
Fenwick’s relation, Mark Fenwick, purchased Abbotswood at Stow on the Wold, Worcestershire in
1901 and employed Lutyens to extend and re-model the house (his first advice was, ‘Blow it up and
start again’). Jekyll was not involved in this commission as Fenwick was himself a ‘keen gardener’.
Early images of the Temple Dinsley Rose Garden
Above is a modern-day aeriel photograph of the rose garden which shows its structure and position to
the west of the house (which is shown right). Below is a diagram of the design of the rose garden.
A doorway at the centre of the west wing of Temple Dinsley opened out onto a lawn and then the
formal paved rose garden. The roses were supplied by Harkness of Hitchin. In the centre was a
stone-paved path. The earliest photographs show that there were no borders beside the path. But by
1914 a narrow border of yew had been planted. The path leads to a square parterre which is laid out
with a geometric pattern of rose beds. The beds are surrounded by further stone paving. In the centre
of the parterre was a statute of Father Time, an old leaden figure, silvery-white and armed with a
scythe and hour glass (now replaced by a sundial).
On the south side of the garden there was a brick retaining wall which separated the rose garden
from a pool. (Today the pool is a swimming pool.)
On the north side is a brick wall into which was set a covered loggia which overlooked the centre of
the rose beds, and separated two garden houses. The loggia was supported on the south side by
white pillars and at either end there were garden houses - square, brick garden pavilions with
pyramidal roofs. Both had a door opening out into the loggia.
The west side of the rose garden was bounded by a low, brick retaining wall with a central flight of
stone steps leading up to an open lawn which was enclosed by brick walls. In 1911, this was the
herbaceous garden which had broad borders that ran west from the steps to the west wall along the
north and south walls. The garden wall enclosing the former herbaceous garden dates from the
1700s. The rose garden is acclaimed for its elegant brickwork.
1913c
Photographed in 1911
1914c. Note the hedging around the grassed area near the house.
In 1914, Annie Swynnerton painted Herbert and Violet Fenwick’s children, David (left)
and Jonathan in the rose garden. It gives a wonderful impression of the colourful
exuberance in the garden
1913c
Views of the rose garden on 22 April 2010
The rose garden had a makeover in 1993 with roses specially budded by Harness. The retaining
walls and York stone steps were repaired but in 1996 the terrace was still reported as being ‘wobbly’.
The then headmaster, John Jarvis said, ‘A couple of groundsmen can just maintain it. We can’t justify
spending £10,000 on garden restoration. The priority has to be the school....It would cost tens of
thousands to restore it back to Jekyll’.
The rose garden was featured as part of the appeal of Princess Helen College. Its web site states,
‘The formal rose garden, where the influence of Gertrude Jekyll is plainly evident, is a stunning
location for girls and staff to relax and for parents to enjoy at key school events’.
A centennial celebration in the rose garden
On the anniversary one hundred years later, in 2014, of the painting of the Fenwick children in the
rose garden, the picture was re-created by Herbert and Violet’s grandson, Benedict Fenwick and the
head of Princess Helena College, Jo-Anne Duncan:
What was the extent of Gertrude Jekyll’s involvement in the creation of the Rose Garden?
Firstly, we can be certain that Gertrude Jekyll did not plant the rose garden. In 1912, the catalgue of
Hitchin-based R Harkness and Co. displayed the colourized image below. It stated that it was they
who planted out the garden, in 1909/1910. But significantly, the catalogue claims “Jekyll ordered
roses from R. Harkness & Co” :
However, reservations about Jekyll’s involvent in the planning of the rose garden and the extent of
her collaboration began to be raised in the 1990s. This was written in Hertfordshire Garden History
Volume 2 (2012) by Kate Harwood:
Much the same view was expressed in Parks in Hertfordshire Since 1500 - Hugh C Prince
(2008):
Historic England (albeit in a report written in 1999 and edited in 2000) states that Lutyens and Jekyll
collaborated on the garden and that Jekyll designed the planting: “…In 1908 Fenwick employed
Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) to enlarge the house substantially and remodel it. At this time Lutyens
collaborated with Gertrude Jekyll (1843 - 1932) in creating formal gardens to the west and north of the
house, providing a further extension to the house in 1911.
The gardens are divided into a series of inter-connected compartments largely related to the west and
north fronts of the house, laid out by Lutyens with planting designs by Gertrude Jekyll, c 1909-10. The
garden structures are listed grade II…….…….. Lutyens and Jekyll were also working on the gardens
at Putteridge Bury, 6km to the west, at around the time Lutyens was employed in further extensions at
Temple Dinsley.”
I contacted Kate asking about the basis for this comment and she replied, “This was based on a
remark by the person who did the original research on the garden.”
Possibly, this relates to a report in 1993 by the Hertfordshire Garden Trust Research Group which
included Jane Brown. Photographs taken in around 1910 were studied and my understanding of an
ensuing conversation is that it was felt that perhaps the rose garden was over-planted (having six
rather than four standard roses in each segment) which was ‘typical nursery planting’.
The lack of Jekyll-styled under-planting using plants such as stachys, bergenis, alchemilla mollis and
lavender was also noted. The photographs show only low-growing rose bushes. And it was thought
that maybe the overall view from the house was therefore somewhat austere. This was softenened a
few years later by the planting of a low yew hedge around the lawns leading to the rose garden, as
shown in later photographs.
Richard Bisgrove in The Gardens of Gertrude Jekyll calculates that his subject left more that 2,000
plans of some 250 gardens. It is also recorded that Jekyll and Lutyens collaborated on a rose garden
concurrently with the Temple Dinsley project at nearby Puckeridge Bury.
There is concrete confirmation that this took place because Jekyll’s plan for this planting survives:
The plan showed that the rose garden was surrounded by a yew hedge; the beds were bordered with
stachys and divided by bushes (which may have been lavender). The roses were ordered from
Harkness in 1912.
So here we have two similar and neighbouring rose gardens being planted at around the same time,
both seemingly involving Jekyll and Lutyens. Yet there are significant differences, particularly in the
plants used for the underplanting to mask the unsightly base of the rose bushes.
My view is that, in the light of the above, and that there is no record of Jekyll visiting Temple Dinsley
and no extant plan of a rose garden there being drawn up by her, Jekyll ordered the roses from
Harness and Co, who then planted them as they saw fit - and that was the extent of her involvement.
Essentially, that is what Harness’ catalogue tells us.
We will conclude with four final observations to ponder. Lawrence Weaver wrote an eleven-page
piece celebrating the Lutyens renovations at Temple Dinsley in Country Life magazine, issue of April
1911. It included a page of comment about the immediate surroundings of the mansion which
incorporated ‘a little paved rose garden’ which was adorned with
And lest we think there was some antipathy between Weaver and Jekyll, they collaborated to write
Gardens for Small Country Houses in 1913. A photograph of Temple Dinsley’s cherub on a gate-pier
was included - an opportunity to mention Gertrude’s work in the garden? Missed!
There can be little doubt that Lutyens after working with Jekyll on so many projects would have
absorbed much information and direction about her methods - and consciously or unconsciously
would have been guided by her hand as he laid out the rest of the Temple Dinsley. Indeed there may
well have been some correspondence and/or discussions between the two about the commission.
Whether or not this might be called “a collaboration” is perhaps a step too far.
‘Father Time, an old leaden figure, silvery white and armed
with scythe and hour-glass’. Gertrude Jekyll was not
mentioned.
In 1921, Weaver repeated most of these comments in
Lutyens’ Houses and Gardens in a chapter devoted to
Temple Dinsley. Gertrude Jekyll was not mentioned.
Weaver also wrote English Leadwork: Its Art and History
(1909) which had photographs of an urn, Father Time and
cherubs in the Temple Dinsley gardens. Gertrude Jekyll
was not mentioned.
Photographed in 1911