Felbridge & District History Group

The first handout in the series covered the horticultural legacy and creation of a ‘Park’ in the 18^th century by the Evelyn family of Felbridge House and its continued expansion by the Gatty family after their purchase of the estate in 1855.  The Gatty legacy is supplemented by accounts made by George Gatty on a whole range of horticultural notes from the fruit trees he had planted to the rose garden he created.  Also, from George Gatty’s notes, it was possible to determine the suppliers of many of the plants used for the replanting of the Felbridge estate and the gardeners employed to realise the horticultural ideas in the creation of the Pleasure Grounds of Felbridge Place by its sale in 1911.  Finally, the handout highlighted the horticultural legacy left by both the Evelyn and Gatty families that can still be seen in Felbridge to this day.

This handout, the second in the series, will cover how the ideas of the influential and eminent gardener William Robinson of Gravetye, were put into practice by garden designer and landscape architect Sylvia Crowe who once lived at Felmere off Copthorne Road and in the creation of the garden of Miriam Markham at Hawthorns, Crawley Down Road, the widow of Ernest Markham, Head Gardener to William Robinson.

William Robinson

The following is not intended to be a complete biography of William Robinson, merely some of his ideas on plants, horticulture and garden design that influenced and inspired the work of garden designer and landscape architect Sylvia Crowe and the Markhams – through Ernest Markham’s position as William Robinson’s Head Gardener at Gravetye, to the creation of the garden at Hawthorns, where Miriam Markham lived after the death of her husband Ernest.

William Robinson was born 5^th July 1838 in Co. Down, N. Ireland, and started his gardening career at Currahmore, Co. Waterford, the home of the Marquess of Waterford.  He then became a student gardener at the NationalBotanic Garden, Glasnevin near Dublin, where he gained a thorough knowledge of plants and planting before moving to Ballykilcavan, Co. Laois, the home of Sir Hunt Johnson-Walsh, where he rose to the position of foreman.  It was whilst here that William Robinson gained his aversion to the concept of garden bedding.  In 1861, he moved to London to work at the Royal Botanic Society’s Garden in RegentsPark, being assigned the herbaceous garden.  Anxious to increase the number of plants in the collection, he toured many other gardens and collections, making life-long friends and connections.

William Robinson spent a lifetime promoting his ideas through the publications he wrote and articles in magazines and journals, including The Gardener’s Chronicle and The Times.  In 1871, he also launched his own gardening journal, simply named The Garden: An Illustrated Weekly Journal of Horticulture in All Its Branches, which was published between 1871 and 1927 when it merged with Homes and Gardens.  This was followed by a weekly illustrated journal called Gardening Illustrated and a monthly review for garden lovers called Flora and Sylva.  He also managed the garden section of The Field.

William Robinson also wrote the prefaces to several books, including Clematis by his Head Gardener Ernest Markham (see below), and was the author of a number of influential books on plants, gardening and garden and landscape design, including:

1) SingleColourGarden Beds, which he considered were against the laws of nature.  In his view, to confine to one colour ‘cuts off many beautiful things and robs the scene of variety, a main source of beauty’. 

2) Carpet Bedding, which, having acquired a dislike for it at Ballykilcavan, formulated his opinion that ‘for ages the flower garden has been marred by absurdities of this kind of work … in this the beautiful forms of flowers are degraded to crude colour without reference to the natural forms or beauty of the plants … All such work is wrong and degrading to art, and in its extreme expressions is ridiculous’.

The garden ideas that flew from his pen broke from the traditional view of the flower garden being a set geometric piece, with flower beds crowded into lawns and carpet bedding, in favour of natural planting, where plants were planted for beauty.  To him, mixed borders (also known as herbaceous borders) ensured that there was no more wasted time digging up the flower garden in a repetitive programme of summer bedding, once planted the herbaceous border went on for years in its own natural sequence of flowering.  He whole-heartedly advocated that a garden should have no colour scheme or geometric pattern in sight, but use bold clumps of plants, employing the technique that is today known as ground cover.  Ideas considered revolutionary at the time. 

He believed that when creating or re-modelling a garden, nothing should be done without considering its effect on the landscape from every viewpoint, because when designing a garden ‘the best results can only be got by the owner who knows and loves his ground’.  He also felt that the plants used in the garden design should be grown for their suitability and not exoticness, as had been the norm during the Victorian era, as ‘Most garden lovers strive for the ideal soil, but this does not always lead to happy results… but the wisest way is rather to rejoice in and improve the soil fate has planted on us… whatever the nature of the soil in a given garden, it should to a large extent govern what we grow’.  He also believed that the garden design should take into account any man-made structures, for example ‘A beautiful house in a fair landscape is the most delightful scene of the cultivated earth, all the more so if there be an artistic garden.  The union between the house beautiful and the ground near it is worthy of more thought, and the best way of effecting that union artistically should interest men more and more as out cities grow large and the landscape shrinks back from them….Today the ever-growing city, pushing its hard face over our once beautiful land, should make us wish more and more to keep such beauty of the earth as may remain to us’, views that were not lost on the up and coming landscape architect Sylvia Crowe (see below).

However, for many years William Robinson wrote about plants and gardening whilst never actually having his own garden, but in 1885 he purchased the rundown estate of Gravetye, West Hoathly in Sussex, initially living at Moat Farm House (later known as Mead Cottage, then Moat Cottage and today The Moat), which was part of the estate, whilst remodelling the ‘manor house’, gardens and grounds.  During the fifty years that William Robinson lived at Gravetye he amassed an estate of well over 1,100 acres through the purchase of surrounding farms including Mill Place Estate Farm, Stone Farm, (mainly for its rock formation, selling off the remainder of the farm land), Crow Fields Farm, Old Coombe Farm, land to the north between Gravetye and Selsfield, and Blacklands Farm in Sharpthorne.

The estate gave William Robinson a blank canvas on which to create his vision of the perfect garden and where not blank, if a plant was in the wrong place or obstructed the view it was removed, including several Wellingtonia or Giant Redwoods (Sequoiadendron giganteum) that had been planted as an exotic species prior to his purchase of the estate.  However, he did have a particular interest in trees, planting thousands of trees that he felt were suitable to the soil conditions.  He also planted Tea Roses, Tufted Pansies (Viola cornuta), Carnations (Dianthus caryophyllus) and Michaelmas Daisies, also known as Starwarts (Aster amellus); wild meadow bulbs including Blue Anemones (Anemone blanda), Crocus, Snowdrops (Galanthus), Daffodils (Narcissus), Snowflakes (Leucojum), Grape Hyacinths (Muscari), Dog’s Tooth Violets (Erythronium dens-canis), Stars of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum), Fritillaria, St Bruno’s Lilies (Paradisea liliastrum), Snow Glories or Glory of the Snow (Chionodoxa luciliae), Bluebells or Wild Hyacinths (Hyacinthoides non-scripta), Scilla and Wild Tulips (Tulipa sylvestris), which would all have died down before a meadow was hayed; alpine plants either in stone walls, paths or meadows (leasing land on the Gravetye estate to Walter E Thomas Ingwerson to establish an alpine nursery); and ramblers such as Clematis (buying the entire collection of clematis from the firm James Veitch & Son when it ceased trading in 1914) thus  making the clematis one of Gravetye’s most beautiful features, with flowers from May through to the end of September.

William Robinson’s views and writings were not just confined to domestic situations when, in 1889, he decided to plant the embankments of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway line that ran through the Gravetye estate.  He felt that they should become more integrated with his vision of beauty in the landscape as such he sowed the embankments with seeds of furze, broom and acacia and planted trees to form Railway Shaw.  Finally, he had thousands of Bluebell Bulbs (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) scattered on the embankments and it was this carpet of blue that gave rise to the naming of the Horsted Keynes to Kingscote as the Bluebell Line, when the railway was re-opened under private ownership in 1960.  William Robinson was associated the Golders Green Crematorium, that opened in 1902, being instrumental in its founding and design of gardens that replaced the traditional Victorian mourning graveyard with open lawn, flowerbeds, and woodland gardens.

In 1909, William Robinson fell on route to a service at St Margaret’s church at West Hoathly, from which he received a spinal injury that never fully healed.  Nurses from WestminsterHospital were appointed to care for him at Gravetye (two failing to meet with his demanding expectations), however, the third, Mary Gilpin, who was just as exacting as William Robinson, remained with him for the remainder of his life.  By 1910, William Robinson was able to take little jaunts in his wheelchair round the paved areas and noticed all was not well in the garden because although he had gardeners they lacked his guidance so he engaged a ‘sound man with whom he could confer and who would see that his orders were carried out faithfully’.  That man was Ernest Markham (see below), eventually being handed complete control of the garden. 

William Robinson died aged 96, on 17^th May 1935 and after a service at St Margaret’s church, his body was taken for a committal service at Golders Green Crematorium, in the unique and beautiful Garden of Rest he had designed.

Postscript

To ensure the safekeeping of Gravetye after his death, William Robinson left Gravetye Manor, its gardens and woodlands, to the nation, to be held and utilized for the purpose of State forestry.  However, there were strict conditions:

The house, gardens, orchards and other grounds round about were not to be used for the purpose of lectures, research or technical instruction.

The house was to be let and the proceeds were to go to aid State forestry.  

The woodlands were to be preserved for the growth of timber and evergreen forest trees, and as a sanctuary for birds and foxes, badgers and other indigenous animals and birds.

The house and grounds were to be free to the public at least one day a week; the woods on Thursday as before his death.

Sadly, even with the best intentions, within three years of William Robinson’s death, the gardens were over-grown and neglected.  The house lay empty until November 1939 when it was leased and a new team of gardeners were employed to reinstate the garden, but sadly by December 1939, they had been called up for war service and the property spent the war years as a billet for Canadian officers, whilst the gardens were dug up to grow vegetables.  Eventually, in 1958, it was leased to a restaurateur who refurbished the gardens, replacing some of the flower beds with lawn, but sadly the 35-acre gardens surrounding the manor house again fell into a state decline until 2010 when the manor was bought by Mr and Mrs Hosking and a major renovation project was instigated, which still continues to this day; the house being run as a small luxury hotel and exclusive restaurant.  The surrounding woodland is now managed by the William Robinson Trust.

Sylvia Crowe

Sylvia Crowe was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire, on 15^th September 1901, the daughter of Eyre Crowe and his wife Beatrice née Stockton.  Sylvia had two siblings, Beatrice Evelyn who was born in 1897 but who sadly died in 1908, and Henry (known as Harry) who was born in 1899.  Sylvia was educated at Berkhamsted Girls School in Hertfordshire between 1908 and 1912 but at the age of ten she developed a form of tuberculosis and her parents were advised to withdraw her from school.  In 1911, Sylvia’s her father Eyre Crowe retired, through ill-health, from his cabinet making and printing company called Henry Stone & Son Ltd. and decided to venture into fruit growing, establishing the Felbridge Fruit Farm Company on 11^th August 1911.  A suitable site for the venture was purchased on 4^th January 1912, when Eyre Crowe and the Felbridge Fruit Farm Company purchased the freehold of Hedgecourt Farm, once part of the Felbridge estate, from the East Grinstead Estate Company.  In one of the fields at Hedgecourt Farm, Eyre had built a new family home he called Felmere [for further information see Handout, Felmere, JIC/SJC 03/07]. 

As a result of Sylvia’s ill-health, she was taught at home by her mother and spent most of her time outdoors working on the fruit farm that her father had set up at Felmere or wandering around the lake and surrounding countryside at Hedgecourt, which today has been given the status of a Site of Special Scientific Interest [for further information see Handout, Hedgecourt SSSI, SJC/JW 05/13].  As children, Sylvia and her brother Harry also enjoyed the many pursuits afforded by HedgecourtLake, such as swimming and sailing in the summer and skating on the lake when it froze in winter. Sylvia also travelled abroad with their parents and one of her earliest memories was of sitting on a carpet of Wild Cyclamen (Cyclamen hederifolium) in a Corsican forest with her parents in 1905.  However, with the outbreak of World War I, the foreign travels were curtailed and, with the loss of so many male farm hands to war service, Sylvia, like numerous other women and girls, had to work on the farm, being made responsible for a small herd of cows [for further information see Handout, Women’s Opportunities in Felbridge as a consequence of World War I, SJC 11/19].  After World War I, Sylvia’s parents resumed their travels abroad and Sylvia often accompanied her father when he was sketching and painting and as a consequence developed her own artistic ability.  It was through the enjoyment of her outdoor life and pursuits and wanderings in the Felbridge countryside that Sylvia acquired an intense love and respect of the countryside; landscape in particular.

As early as the age of seven, and out of her love of the countryside and interest in the landscape, grew a desire to design and create gardens and it would be nice to think that perhaps Sylvia had some influence on the original garden design at the family home of Felmere, especially as the site had been no more than a field of Hedgecourt Farm on their arrival.  Even in her teens, Sylvia would visit William Robinson, the eminent garden designer, at his home at Gravetye Manor at West Hoathly in Sussex, to view and discuss the gardens that he had created there, which seems to have made a significant impression on her.  As her nephew later wrote, ‘His [William Robinson] style appealed to her, particularly the sculptural way in which plants were used and how his informality had composition’ and in later life Sylvia even wrote an article about William Robinson that appeared in the magazine, Hortus – a Gardening Journal.  

In 1920, Sylvia decided to enrol on a 2-year course at SwanleyHorticulturalCollege in Kent, that was based on the more physical and practical side of horticulture, providing an understanding of plants, planting and soil.  Here Sylvia met Brenda Colvin, both being taken under the wing of Madeline Agar, an eminent landscape designer who was active in London in the 1920’s, being responsible for work on Wimbledon Common in which she was assisted by Brenda Colvin.  From their meeting at Swanley, Sylvia and Brenda would remain friends for the rest of their lives.  In 1922, after completing her studies at Swanley, Sylvia’s first work placement was at Hobland Hall in Great Yarmouth, formerly in Suffolk, although after the county boundary change in 1974 it is now in Norfolk.  However, in 1926, Sylvia returned to the idea of designing gardens and took an apprenticeship with the landscape architect Edward White, son-in-law and a partner of Henry Ernest Milner (formerly Superintendent of Works at the Crystal Palace and Park after its move to Sydenham in 1852) at Milner, Son and White in London, where she learned skills in surveying and drawing a site.  This then led to an appointment in 1928 as landscape architect/designer at Cutbush Nurseries, for the nurseryman and garden contractor William Cutbush who had outlets in High Gate and Barnet.  Primarily Sylvia designed small private gardens, although occasionally she was able to work on a more grand scale, one such garden design being for the gardens at Lower Soughton, near Mold in North Wales.   Sylvia was noted for the inclusion of water features and sculptures within her garden schemes and particularly for her ability to create private, compartmentalised areas in even the smallest gardens.  Her schemes took into consideration the natural landscape, the ability to create views and vistas and the overall character of the area to be developed.  Sadly none of the designs for her early commissions for private gardens survive as they were lost during World War II, although a few of her later garden designs such as Cotttesbrook Hall, Northamptonshire and The Walled Garden at Holkham in North Norfolk are now open to the public.

In 1934, Sylvia was elected an Associate of the Institute of Landscape Architects (ILA) and in 1935 became a Fellow of the Institute.  In 1937, whilst working for Cutbush Nurseries, Sylvia won a gold Medal for her garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.  The garden was an informal garden with a bluebell wood from which a stream flowed into a pond, somewhat reminiscent to the gardens at Gravetye which she had spent so much time visiting during her teens.  Another garden that Sylvia designed for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show was a daring garden using a concrete summerhouse based on a structure she had seen on a trip to France.  This made a huge impact on the visitors, unfortunately mostly in a negative way, some being quite hostile towards her use of ‘modern’ materials, although Geoffrey Jellicoe, with whom she later worked, greatly admired the work.  As a result of her bold use of concrete in the garden she was asked by the Cement and Concrete Association of Wexham Springs, Buckinghamshire, to design a small town garden.  Her design response was a series of circular concrete containers that fitted one above the other to make a group of various heights, a design that is still produced today.  She also created a concrete water feature for their Research Centre gardens that was described at the time as being reminiscent of ‘a pair of concrete coffee tables filled with water’.

However, Sylvia’s garden designs had to be put on hold with the outbreak of World War II.  Sylvia joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry and became an ambulance driver to a Polish brigade in northern France, being part of the withdrawal from Paris with the advance of the German forces.  On returning to England, she served with the Auxiliary Territorial Service being promoted to Sergeant.  After the war, with no job to go to, Sylvia was offered a room by her friend and former classmate from SwanleyCollege, Brenda Colvin, at her London office at 28, Baker Street, where Sylvia set up her own private practice in garden design that flourished.  Although they had trained together back in the early 1920’s, Sylvia and Brenda never went into partnership although they are known to have collaborated on some landscape projects.  In 1952, the couple moved offices to 182, Gloucester Place, where Brenda remained until 1965 when she moved to Little Peacocks at Filkins, Gloucestershire, and Sylvia remained until 1982.  Throughout her working life, Sylvia had an underlying belief that gardens were the link between men and the world in which they lived, stating 'Man needs nature and if the genuine country is beyond his reach, he must be given a substitute’.

During the war years, the Institute of Landscape Architects (ILA) had been kept going by Geoffrey Jellicoe and after the war, with the massive re-building programme, landscape architects saw new opportunities in garden design and a move away from gardens for the wealthy to landscaping for the public sector.  The programme of New Towns and re-building increased demand for the services of landscape architects, expanding their horizons to deal with not only gardens but also roads, sports fields, schools and shopping centres, all the amenities of modern life.  Sylvia was quick to embrace these new opportunities working on a variety of green spaces in a number of New Towns and was later the consultant for landscapes surrounding utilitarian buildings such as hospitals, training colleges, research stations and reservoirs and between 1948 and 1968 worked with Geoffrey Jellicoe in the formation of the International Federation of Landscape Architects, being secretary for eleven years and later Acting President.

In Sylvia’s eyes, power-stations, gasometers, sewage farms, crematoria, airfields and large-scale sports grounds were all newcomers to the landscape and out of scale with its existing pattern.  The great challenge was to design landscapes that would integrate these large, modern structures and to, as she put it, ‘exploit their latent beauty and create from it a new landscape’.  She was also the first ever landscape consultant for the Forestry Commission introducing revolutionary ideas that forests should be places of enjoyment and that the contours of landscapes should be defined by the grouping of trees.  The principles she laid down on mixed planting, plantation outlines and response to contours are still followed to this day, based on her advice that landscape should be considered on a far wider scale, resulting in woods that are aesthetically pleasing as well as productive.

Sylvia handled landscapes of hugely diverse scales, from small garden details to hundreds of acres of New Towns, forestry and reservoir margins.  Her drawings were typically hastily executed and occasionally scruffy but invariably demonstrated her great clarity of thought.  Final drawings for projects were prepared by drawing office staff from her rough sketches and she was able to achieve much with a relatively small practice.  With each project she always showed acute awareness of context.  In her drawings her contribution to schemes appears predominantly in terms of planting, but these drawings do not fully reflect the influence she had already exerted on the projects, persuading interdisciplinary teams to recognise the significance of views, landform and local character in determining the location and impact of new interventions in the landscape.  The ILA Nominations Committee recommended Sylvia for work and Geoffrey Jellicoe passed commissions on to her, including the provision of a landscape report for Hemel Hempstead New Town.

As well as running her practice, Sylvia also wrote several books on a variety of subjects connected with industrial landscapes and garden design, many of which are considered as classics within their respective disciplines.  Perhaps the most notable of these books, with regards to the amateur or professional gardener, was Garden Design, first published in 1956 but still as relevant today as it was when first published over sixty years ago.  Sylvia wanted to pass on her knowledge and passion for landscape to all who worked with her, including the many international students from Europe and America that worked alongside her and were trained in the skills necessary for landscape design during the summer months.  Sylvia also served on the ILA’s Examination and Education Committees for many years.

In 1967, Sylvia received a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) and in 1973 she was made a Dame of the British Empire (DBE) in recognition of her work and influence on gardening styles during the 20^th century.  Perhaps a direct comparison with the influences of her teenage years at Felmere can be drawn between her ideas for planting, particularly with regard to reservoirs and that of the lake side at Hedgecourt.  Sylvia advocated softening the edges of the man-made lakes with planting to diminish and conceal the dams and concrete, a direct comparison with the man-made lake of Hedgecourt, which, having been created in the mid 16^th century [for further information see Handouts, Hedgecourt Common, SJC 07/01 and Hedgecourt Mill Cottages, SJC 07/04] had had time to mature into its setting by the early 20^th century when Sylvia lived at its edge.  She also believed reservoirs, as with all modern amenities in her view, should become merged with their surroundings and offer recreational facilities to the populous, much as HedgecourtLake offered with its swimming, sailing and skating during her youth.  Sylvia’s design concepts had the foresight to speed up the re-generation of nature surrounding the new structures appearing in the post-war years, to create a landscape that they comfortably sat into with the least visual impact on the natural landscape surrounding them.

In old age, Sylvia said, ‘I have enjoyed being a landscape architect; I would not have wanted to be anything else’ and today many of her original post-war designs can be found in the archives of the Institute of Landscape Architects and at the Museum of Rural Life (MERL) at Reading University and in the physical world at the many locations for which she designed.  Sylvia never married and, after a long and influential life, died on 30^th June 1997 and was buried at HardwickHillCemetery, in the rolling Oxfordshire countryside, in the town where she had been born nearly ninety-seven years earlier.

Legacies of Sylvia Crowe

Listed Gardens

Commonwealth Institute, Holland Park, London

The gardens and grounds surrounding the commonwealth Institute were designed by Sylvia Crowe in 1960 being completed in 1962 and were listed by English Heritage in 1998, just one of only 51 post-war designed landscapes.  However, the Commonwealth Institute building had several flaws and despite numerous attempts to stop its copper roof leaking it was vacated in 2002.  Several attempts were made to save the Grade II listed building, eventually being repurposed to house the DesignMuseum after Terence Conran financed its moved from Butler’s Wharf.  However, saving the building came at the cost of Sylvia’s garden, which was sold to developers to create an urban space (inspired by Sylvia Crowe’s landscape style) to help claw back some of the finances spent on saving the building.

Gardens of the John Summers Steelworks Headquarters, Shotton, Flintshire

The gardens surrounding the John Summer’s Steelworks Headquarters were designed Sylvia Crowe (date not yet established) to complement the adjacent office buildings and included a bowling green, tennis court and putting green.  The Headquarters of John Summers & Son Ltd had been built in Shotton in 1907 but the company was nationalised in 1951, was then absorbed into British Steel in 1967, which eventually become absorbed into Corus in 1999.  The site was vacated and the building boarded up in 2006, a year before Corus was taken over by Tata Steel.  In 2006 the building was given a Grade II listed status as were several of the outbuildings and the Sylvia Crowe grounds, which were considered an important rare survival of a purpose-built garden on an industrial site.  Over the next decade the site became badly vandalised and by 2018 had been placed on the Top 10 endangered buildings list.  However, in 2019, the site was handed over to a Foundation that hopes to turn the site into a usable building and space for the community, whilst retaining and restoring Sylvia’s listed garden.

Harlow Town Park, Harlow, Essex

The 164-acre Park was designed between 1949 and 1953 to complement the New Town of Harlow in Essex.  The park includes formal gardens, footpaths, and a bandstand and also incorporates existing landscape features including woodland and watercress beds.   HarlowTownPark was listed in 2020.

Gardeners

Sylvia Crowe no doubt influenced and inspired many gardeners, garden designers and landscape architects of the latter half of the 20^th century and, through her publications, will continue to inspire many more.  However, two well known later 20^th century garden designers that were highly influenced by her ideals include:  

John Andrew Brookes MBE (1933-2018)

John Brookes worked with both Sylvia Crowe and Brenda Colvin before establishing his own practise.  His view was that the garden should be considered as a ‘room outside’.  He designed more than 1,000 gardens in a career spanning 60 years and established his own design school from his home at Denmans in West Sussex, influencing a whole new generation of landscape architects and designers.  Some of his best-known public gardens include the Penguin Books headquarters in London (now lost), the College Green Garden at Westminster Abbey, London, Fitzroy Square in London, Bryanston Square in London, Barakura English Garden in Japan and the English Walled Garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden (a 385-acre living plant museum situated on nine islands in the Cook County Forest Preserves).  Like Sylvia, John also wrote, publishing over 25 books and pamphlets on garden and landscape design during his lifetime; his most renowned books being A Room Outside and A Landscape Legacy.

Anthony du Gard Pasley (1929-2009)

Anthony du Gard Pasley also trained under Sylvia Crowe and Brenda Colvin, and worked for a period of time with landscapers Wallace & Barr of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, before returning to work for Sylvia Crowe.  It was during this period that John Brookes came to work in the office, forming a friendship with Anthony that was to last for fifty years.  Anthony’s garden design work was characterised by an understanding of space, and a control of plant texture and form.   He was as happy working in gardens in need of restoration as he was in new gardens and was unafraid of modern materials.  His most notable gardens can be found at Pashley Manor at Ticehurst, Kent, Old Place Farm, at Ashford, Kent and Parsonage Farm at Kirdford near Chichester, West Sussex.

Awards

Dame Sylvia Crowe Award for Outstanding International Contribution to People, Place and Nature

Introduced in 2018, by the Landscape Institute, it is the first Award open, globally, to individuals and organisations.  The winner in 2018 was the QuarryGarden in ShanghaiChenshanBotanical Garden, created by the Beijing Tsinghua Tongheng Urban Planning & Design Institute.  The judges were impressed with the modern design methods used to create a stunning series of attractions that re-established the connection between people and the quarry wasteland.  It demonstrates how a landscape can be transformed to benefit people, place and nature, turning a scarred landscape into an attractive re-naturalised environment providing recreation and ecological restoration.

The winner in 2019 was the Landscape Belt at XiangluBay in Zhuhai by LAY-OUT Planning Consultants.  The resulting design provides a storm-resistant landscape, where the soft beach reduces the power of the waves, establishing a new standard of the restoration of coastal waterfront in a typhoon-prone region, whilst making it a dynamic coastal open space.  It was a cost-effective and environmental-friendly design with the materials and plants coming from the local area, whilst the rebuilding of the beach was combined with the action of dredging in Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, reducing the cost in money and resources.

Summary of Sylvia Crowe’s achievements

Sylva Crowe became one of the foremost garden architects of the 20^th century with a large body of work to her name including diverse projects ranging from private gardens and New Towns to Power Stations and Reservoirs.  Sylvia was a consultant for variety of wide-ranging projects, first with William Cutbush and later as sole consultant or working with an associate.  Although the following is not a complete list of projects that Sylvia Crowe was involved with, particularly as all her design work has been lost for the projects on which she worked prior to World War II, this is perhaps the most comprehensive list:

Garden designs, private

Garden Restorations, private

Garden designs, semi-public

Forestry

Landscape plans

Power

Reservoirs

Transport

Landscape reports

Consultancies

Publications

Magazine articles

Awards

Ernest and Miriam Markham

Ernest Markham was born in Newbottle, Northamptonshire, on 4^th November 1881 (although he was baptised on 17^th September 1885), the son of William Markham, a shepherd, and his wife Dinah Diana née Astley.  Ernest had at least eight siblings including, James born in 1873, Sarah Elizabeth born in 1875, Arthur Fred born in 1876, Ester Ann born in 1879, Susan Rebecca born in 1884, Rhoda Emma born in 1886 and Lottie Lavinia born in 1889, the first child was born in Canhale, Warwickshire, whilst all the others were all born in Newbottle.  In 1881 and 1891, Ernest was living with the Markham family at Charlton Lodge, Main Street, Charlton, Newbottle.  Unfortunately, it has not been possible to conclusively find him in the 1901 census records, but in 1911, he was living in a 12-room property called The Gardens, Bishopsgate at Englefield Green, Egham, Surrey.  The census records Ernest as a widower who had been married for three full years and that he was working as a domestic gardener for Lord Marcus Beresford of Bishopsgate, Englefield Green.

It has been established that sometime between 1891 and 1907, Ernest had moved to Arlington Court, Barnstaple, Devon, where he worked as a domestic gardener for Lady Rosalie Chichester.  On 22^nd June 1907, Ernest married Ethel Werrell in Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.  Ethel had been born at Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire, in 1882, the daughter of William Werrell, a carpenter, and, since at least 1901, had been working as a housemaid for Horace W Kirby, an accountant, of The Crofts, Station Road, Harrow.  Unfortunately, it has not yet been established as to how Ernest and Ethel met.  What is known is that in 1910, Ethel Markham, died at Windsor, aged just 28.  This would suggest that Ernest and Ethel had moved to Bishopsgate sometime between their marriage in 1907 and her death in 1910.  Shortly after the death of Ethel, or perhaps due to it, Ernest took up the position of Head Gardener to William Robinson at Gravetye Manor.  According to Mae Allan, a biographer of William Robinson, ‘It was love at first sight when he [Ernest Markham] saw Gravetye, appreciating not only the way the gardens were laid out but the wealth of plants in them.  Markham had an extensive knowledge of plants and studied them from all points of view, interested not only in their culture but in their habits and history’.

As Head Gardener, Ernest lived at The Moat (see above), the old dwelling within the grounds of Gravetye.  The Moat, dating to circa 1500, had been the original house at Gravetye before the stone manor house was built in 1597/8 by Richard Infield and it was here that William Robinson had also lived whilst he had the manor house restored.  In 1912, shortly after taking up the position of Head Gardener at Gravetye, Ernest married Miriam Elizabeth Price in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire.  Miriam had been born in Lenton, Nottinghamshire, in 1887, the daughter of William Hugh Baron Price, a coachman (later a waiter), and his second wife, Miriam née Scarrott, who sadly died in 1888, aged just 39.  Miriam Elizabeth Price went into service and by 1911 was working as a domestic housemaid for Lord Marcus Beresford at Bishopsgate; no doubt this is where she first met Ernest whilst he was working there as a domestic gardener.  Ernest and Miriam would spend the rest of their married life at Gravetye, Ernest as Head Gardener, whilst Miriam appears to have become quite friendly with William Robinson and his nurse, Mary Gilpin (see above), being affectionately known as ‘Big Markie’ due to the fact that she was taller than her husband Ernest who was known as ‘Little Markie’.

Ernest was a disciplinarian, of smart appearance and brisk walk.  He was also unassuming and modest and quickly won the respect of the men working under him and gained their friendship off duty, particularly on the cricket field, being quite a fine cricketer.  As for William Robinson, who had been loathed to let go of the reins of his beloved garden, even though failing health had reduced his capabilities in the gardens, he quickly found that Ernest was a suitable Head Gardener and began to hand over more and more responsibility for the garden.  Ernest controlled between 14 and 18 gardeners at any one time and in 1927, when the National Garden Scheme was established, Gravetye was one of the first to be opened in support of the charity.  A year later, Ernest was given full charge of the garden at Gravetye.

William Robinson had always championed the clematis, having written a book in 1912 promoting them, entitled The Virgin’s Bower.  Ernest Markham and his team of gardeners continued to promotion of the clematis and were responsible for raising several new varieties (see below).  Markham wrote: ‘It has been my good fortune to have had under my charge for many years a very large collection of clematis, in which is included nearly all the species possessing garden value, as well as hybrids raised in this country and on the Continent; during that time I have propagated them extensively and have also raised a number of new varieties….  At Gravetye we have planted beds of moderate size with selected varieties.  For these we place in the beds, slantwise, small branches over which the growths ramble’.  They also planted them in pots up trees, in beds and borders and used them as cut flowers.  One of the team of gardeners, Robert (known as Bob) Snashford, who joined as an apprentice in 1925, was responsible for looking after the clematis seedlings at night.  His duties included keeping them clean and putting pea sticks up for their support and there was generally between 2 and 3 thousand of them!  By 1931, Ernest was a recognised breeder of clematis and was made Associate of Honour of the RHS, both for this and his work in naming the plants for them. 

Alongside his gardening duties, Ernest was encouraged by William Robinson to write, and one of the first things he did write was a short text about the Himalayan Blue Poppy (Macnopsis baileyi (betonicifolia)) that appeared in the 15^th Edition of William Robinson’s The English Flower Garden, published in 1933.  The text described how each plant grew to a height of 5 feet (1.5m), developed 3 or 4 leafy stems and, over several weeks, produced 50 large sky-blue flowers with golden stamens; the text written from observations made of the plants that had arrived at Gravetye gardens as seedlings over 50 years previous.

In 1935, having become a leading authority on the clematis and having established, at Gravetye, the finest collection of clematis in Europe, Ernest Markham wrote a book entitled, The Large and Small Flowered Clematis and their Cultivation in the Open Air.  The foreword was written by William Robinson and was the last piece he would write for publication as he died shortly after in May 1935 (see above).  On his death, William Robinson left Ernest Markham the sum of £1,000 and life tenancy of The Moat, for himself and his ‘widow’, implying that Miriam was entitled to remain at the dwelling until her death, thus the Markham’s continued to live at The Moats.  William Robinson stipulated in his will that Gravetye Manor, including its gardens and woodlands, was to be left to the nation, to be held and utilised for the purpose of State forestry.  The house was to be let and the grounds were to be free to the public to view one day a week (see above). 

Initially life continued relatively normally in the gardens of Gravetye and in 1936, Ernest turned his attention to writing a book on soft fruits, entitled Raspberries and Kindred Fruits; How to obtain fresh supplies daily from June to November with Chapters on the Loganberry, Hybrid Berries and Giant Blackberries.  This book had no doubt been prompted by William Robinson’s love of fruit, having declared ‘that there were only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it was properly ripe’.  In William Robinson’s lifetime, Ernest had been responsible for judging this perfection, when five pears would have been picked and put into a punnet lined with vine leaves and delivered within the allotted time.   William Robinson had also declared that ‘raspberries had to be cut on the stalk with scissors’ but at least under-gardeners had been allowed to carry out this duty.  Ernest also wrote several articles for The Guild Gardener, the monthly journal of the Gardener’s Guild, between 1936 and 1937.  Also, during his lifetime, Ernest Markham’s services were regularly called upon as a Judge at several Horticultural Society’s flower shows around Sussex, including, Eastbourne, Hastings and Haywards Heath and he also exhibited at several Royal Horticultural Society shows.   

After the death of William Robinson, the Forestry Commission appointed a committee to run the estate.  However, the manor house lay empty for four years before finally being leased to Captain OCW Johnsen in 1939.  Ernest Markham died on 6^th December 1937, aged just 56, being buried at St Mary’s Church, West Hoathly, and by 1938 most of Markham’s team of gardeners had left, leaving a diminished number of under-gardeners resulting in the whole estate becoming over-grown and unkempt. 

Sometime after September 1939, Miriam, who, under the terms of William Robison’s will, was entitled to remain at The Moats for the duration of her life, left the Gravetye estate and moved to Hawthorns on Crawley Down Road, Felbridge, where she created a garden reflecting the influences of William Robinson and the knowledge she had gained from his Head Gardener, her husband, Ernest Markham (see below).

Legacies of Ernest Markham

Clematis associated with Gravetye and Ernest Markham

Publications

Clematis (The large and small flowered clematis and their cultivation in the open air), 1935

Raspberries and Kindred Fruits; How to obtain fresh supplies daily from June to November with Chapters on the Loganberry, Hybrid Berries and Giant Blackberries, 1936 

Miriam Markham’s Garden at Hawthorns, Crawley Down Road

Miriam Markham moved to Hawthorns, Crawley Down Road sometime after September 1939, although the exact date has not yet been established.  The move may have been prompted by the fact that Gravetye manor house, including its garden, was finally leased to Captain OCW Johnsen in 1939, although by December 1939 the house had been requisitioned by the War Department to billet Canadian soldiers and the gardens were ordered to be dug up for growing vegetables.  Perhaps it was due to these disruptions at Gravetye, as a consequence of World War II, that caused Miriam to look elsewhere for somewhere to live.  The Markham’s had not had any children and with a probate valuation of £4901 10s 6d on the death of Ernest, Miriam was in a fairly secure financial position to be able to purchase the bungalow in Crawley Down Road.

Hawthorns, now 141, Crawley Down Road, was built on a plot of land that had once been part of the Felbridge estate, being advertised in the 1911 sale catalogue as:

It is known that  the plot did not sell in 1911 and was put back up for auction in 1914, although it has not yet been possible to determine who purchased the piece of land, but an annotated sale catalogue suggests it had a reserve price of between £50 and £70.  Equally it has not yet been possible to determine who developed the plot, except that by 1936, four bungalows had been built on it, with Hawthorns being the most westerly one.  Nos. 133, 135 (formerly a shop that has now been converted as a 2-storey dwelling) and 139 (the plot having been sub-divided with a 2-storey dwelling built adjacent to the original bungalow), Crawley Down Road were all of a similar design being rectangular in shape, built side-on to Crawley Down Road, but Hawthorns, although square in shape, with a pyramidal roof.  In 1939, Hawthorns was in the occupation of single woman Sarah Clark, aged 68; her sister Florence Mary Corbin, the 74-year old widow of John Tomlinson Corbin; and Gertrude Alice Corder née James, the 57-year old widow of Charles William Corder, former chauffeur at Newchapel House.  Florence died from Hawthorns in October 1939, which may have been the catalyst for the property to be put on the market; Sarah moved back to Wandsworth from where she and Florence had originated and Gertrude had moved to 3, WemburyPark by the resumption of Electoral Rolls in 1945.  Based on these events, it seems most likely that Miriam purchased Hawthorns circa 1939/40 and was in residence by the end of World War II in 1945.  

Locally, it has always been said that Miriam received help from the gardeners of Gravetye in the creation of the garden at Hawthorns, which she was to enjoy until 26^th July 1953, when she was found dead, amongst the raspberry canes where she had been picking raspberries; she was aged just 66.  On her death, probate was granted to her half-brother John Albert Price and Hawthorns was put up for sale, being purchased by Albert and Lily Giles, who were relocating with their family from Selsden in Surrey.

Although we have no evidence of the garden at Hawthorns created by Miriam, the following description of the garden is based on the documented memories of Diane Giles, together with photographs from her family albums.  The Giles family moved to Hawthorns, Crawley Down Road, on 17^th December 1953, having purchased the property from the estate of Miriam Markham.  Diane Giles, who was thirteen when they moved in, said that the garden was beautiful and they had been led to believe that gardeners from Gravetye had helped to lay it out for Miriam. 

The whole property was bounded by a hedge of mixed hedging that included Yew (Taxus baccata), Holly (Ilex) and Privet (Ligustrum), among other species, with an entrance to the north-facing front garden through a gate leading off Crawley Down Road.  There was a path that led to the front door bounded by a border on its left side.  To the west of the path was a small lawn with a flower bed that was planted with a few low shrubs and bedding plants leading up to the front of the house and adjacent to the western boundary hedge was an ornamental conifer tree, which is still standing, although it has now been topped out.  The main access to the rear of the property was via a path on the west side, running along the hedge line and past the west side of the bungalow.  To the east of the border, adjacent to the entrance path, was another lawn with a large curving flower bed cut out of it on the far left in which grew a large clump of Angel’s Fishing Rod (Dierama pulcherrimum).  As a point of interest, this plant was so well loved by the Giles family that they took a clump of it with them when they moved to 7, Lodge Close in East Grinstead in the mid 1960’s and again when Lily Giles moved to Grosvenor Road after the death of her husband Albert [for further information see Handout, Felbridge Remembers their WWI Heroes, SJC 05/18] in the 1970’s.  Diane also took a clump of the plant to Clevecote in StreamPark when she moved there in 1974 and again when she moved to WhittingtonCollege in December 2016. 

Returning to the front garden of Hawthorns, a narrow border ran across the front of the bungalow to the east of the main path and the rear garden could also be accessed from this side via a strip of grass between the hedge and a border of heathers (Calluna vulgaris).  A Passion Flower (Passiflora) grew to the left of the bungalow by this path leading to the back garden and over the front door there was a rustic porch comprising of a pergola of wooden poles on which grew Clematis ‘Ernest Markham’.

The rear south-facing garden was divided into three zones, accessed via a path that led straight from the back door of the property to the farthest section, which was an orchard planted with apple trees, including a Bramley cooking apple and at least three dessert varieties – Forge, an old variety that is believed to have been raised locally, Russett and Worcester Pearmain [for further information see Handout Garden Designers & Horticulturalist of Felbridge, Pt. 1 – Horticultural Legacy of the Evelyn and Garry families, SJC 05/10], among others.  This small orchard looked out onto a field and during the time that the Giles family lived at the property it was not unknown for some of the cows that grazed the field to get into the orchard.  In front of the orchard, heading back up the garden towards the bungalow, was a productive vegetable garden, divided by the path.  Within the east section of the vegetable garden, adjacent to the boundary, was a rectangular section of soft fruit that included, blackcurrants (Ribes nigru), raspberries (Rubus), gooseberries (Ribes uva-crispa) and strawberries (Fragaria). 

The orchard and vegetable garden covered about two thirds of the rear garden and the start of the vegetable garden was delineated by a rustic pergola of poles that extended across the width of the plot with a rustic arch, planted with rambling roses, straddling the central path.  Unfortunately, it is a bit unclear as to what the garden was like to the west of the central path from this point back up to the bungalow, largely because there is a bushy, ornamental conifer tree blocking the view in all of the photographs, but it does look like there may have been a flower bed between the vegetable garden on this side and the conifer.  However, it is known that a shed, housing coal among other things, stood between the conifer and the bungalow and that there was a Wisteria behind the shed.  To the east of the central path, on the bungalow side of the rustic pergola, there was a small path that led from the central path to the left-hand boundary hedge behind a rockery.

The rockery had a concave curved front edge abutting a lawn and was planted with at least three dwarf ornamental conifer trees, two that were slim, upright columns and one that was more bulbous in shape, species unknown.  Sadly, although there are photographs of the rockery, it has proved impossible to determine what else it was planted with.  Leading from the rockery to the open-fronted lean-to on the rear of the bungalow was a lawn with a border to its west side adjacent to the central path. There was a border running the length of the lawn adjacent to the boundary hedge on the east side of the property.  This eastern border was planted with, among many other plants, a clump of Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum multiflorium) with a Conference pear tree near the bungalow and some Madonna Lilies (Lilium candidum) in front of the lean-to that could be viewed from the sitting-room.

From the photographs there were many varieties of plants in the garden at Hawthorns, although it has not been possible to determine what they all were.  However, Diane Giles remembers that the garden had a ‘CottageGarden’ feel, an organised and planned garden with a wild atmosphere.  She remembers there were lots of bulbs, both wild and cultivated, including, Snake’s Head Lilies (Fritillaria meleagris), Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) and Wild Daffodils or Lent-Lilies (Narcissus Lobularis), as well as Crocus, Grape Hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum), Narcissus, cultivated Daffodils (Narcissus Pseudonarcissus) and Tulips (Tulipa). 

Other plants included:

It is interesting to note the William Robinson influences on planting had filtered into the garden at Hawthorns, organised but with a wild atmosphere, incorporating the use of native British species alongside ornamental, traditional and common garden plants.  There was a rockery, perhaps providing a habitat for alpine plants that William Robinson so approved of, as well as soft fruit, including raspberries (as written about by Ernest Markham), a pear tree (one of William Robinson’s favourite fruits) and some of the Clematis varieties raised at Gravetye.  It is also nice to know that the name, Miriam Markham, together with that of her husband’s, Ernest Markham, still live on today in the world of the Clematis.

Bibliography