May 2018



‘A Great British Garden Maker’



For gardeners and non-gardeners alike, the month of May heralds the arrival of the wonderfully colourful spectacle that is the Chelsea Flower Show. Undoubtedly the world’s most prestigious horticultural show is an event which inspires millions and leads the way in innovative garden design, so we thought it would be interesting to shine a light on our own fascinating story of garden design.


Whilst you might not be heading off to Chelsea yourself, we have our own connections with the famous venue for the Chelsea Flower Show. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and built at the end of the 17th century, the Royal Hospital Chelsea has been in continuous use for the purpose for which it was designed for over 300 years, with the famous ‘Chelsea-Pensioners’ still housed there.


Architects acting as Surveyor of Works after Wren included our own esteemed architect Robert Adam and Sir John Soane. In the intervening years, between Wren’s work and Soane’s, many other architects had a hand in the advancement of architecture at the Hospital. Soane’s position as ‘Clerk of Works’ was occupied by Robert Adam (1765-1792) and the sumptuous State Rooms of The Royal Hospital Chelsea were designed by Sir Christopher Wren and embellished by Adam. (It was during this period that Adam was to complete the central block here at Mellerstain between 1770 and 1778).



But it was to be another architect who would go on to become a truly ‘Great British Garden Maker’ and design the gardens that we enjoy here at Mellerstain today.


The son of a clergyman and the grandson of a bishop, Sir Reginald Blomfield set up as an architect in 1884 and his early years in practice were influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement. He proved to be an immensely gifted and successful architect and his enthusiasm for excellence also spilled over into garden design.


In 1892, his first book ‘The Formal Garden in England’ was published, offering a counter argument to the back to nature tendencies of William Robinson, an Irish horticultural journalist who had founded The Garden Magazine. Robinson had been promoting a much more natural style of gardening with wild and woodland gardening and this led to criticism against the more ornate sort of Italianate gardens laid out by garden makers such as Sir Charles Barry.


Blomfield was a superb writer and the success of this book brought him immediate renown and many commissions to his practice. He was to ridicule Robinson’s arguments, making it clear that only the architect had the intellectual capacity to design and that ‘it was the gardener’s job to rake the gravel and grow the gooseberries’. Garden historians have revelled in the heated debate that raged between the two men but there were two rather surprising outcomes, the first was the emergence of the modern English style of garden making, a compromise that combined the formal structure advocated by Blomfield with the informal planting championed by Robinson. Gertrude Jekyll is probably the most famous of its early exponents.



But the second surprising outcome was that Robinson invited Blomfield to visit him to Gravetye Manor in Sussex and that the two of them got on very well, as Blomfield himself summed up beautifully:


‘The gardeners said the architects knew nothing about gardening, and the architects said the gardeners knew nothing about design, and there was a good deal of truth on both sides.’


Blomfield was to be the first to admit that sites exist that ‘make a purely formal garden out of the question. We protest entirely against the view that there is one art of the house and another of the garden, they rest on the same principles and aim at a common end.’




In 1909, Blomfield was to receive one of his largest commissions, to design a formal garden for Mellerstain House which would made the most of the extensive views south to the Cheviots. His solution to the steep site was to create three huge balustraded terraces that descend towards the lake at the bottom, as a way of grounding the house and linking it to the majestic setting, his design could not be bettered. Even today, its beauty and grandeur leave visitors in awe.


No visit to Mellerstain would be complete without a wander through the magnificent gardens which were laid out by Sir Reginald Blomfield in 1910. He truly is one of the Great British Garden Makers and as we marvel at the medal winning garden designs at Chelsea this year, there is no doubt that Blomfield has been a hugely influential figure in the world of garden design and his legacy lives on more than 100 years later.



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