Coombe Estate, Croydon, Surrey, was purchased by Arthur Lloyd c1898.   He built a new 20-room mansion, and made a number of improvements to the existing gardens, including the construction of an ornamental rock garden, complete with a pool and waterfall, which carry all the hallmarks of a Pulham creation.   

 Fig 1  -  Entrance to Rocky Path at Coombe Wood

 The estate was sold to Croydon Borough Council in 1941, and the house is now a restaurant.   The fourteen acres of parkland were opened to the public in 1948, and, during the preparatory clearance of the undergrowth, the workmen uncovered the long-forgotten rock garden and waterfall.   This was thankfully done very carefully, and the garden is still there for all to see today.   The Pond is near the entrance to the park from Conduit Lane, and is now planted with seasonal bedding.   Looking across, one can just make out the rocks along the opposite bank

The paved pathway, shown in Fig 1, leads up from the Pond, and through the rock garden by the side of the stream, with Pulhamite rocks with planting pockets along both sides of the path.   This leads steadily upwards to the remains of what used to be the waterfall, which stands about 8ft tall, although it was not working at the time of my visit because the watercourse needed to be properly cleaned out, and the pumping system was also in need of repair.

The pathway branches off to the right at this point, and passes through a small ravine (Fig 2) on its way to link up with the main park area.   Another path at the top leads down to the right, past an old gravel pit, in which was once housed the old stable block – now a small café – and back to the entrance pond.

Fig 2  -  The top path leading from the waterfall in the rock garden at Coombe Wood

 There is a Terrace Garden on the opposite side of the entrance path from the Pond.   It is laid out on what is now called ‘The Mound,’ with a rustic path and steps – shown in Fig 3 – leading up to what used to be the ferneries at the top, although these no longer exist.   It is a vintage Pulham scene, and I concluded that it was probably constructed on the spoil shifted out from the rock garden. 

 Fig 3  -  Rustic steps leading up to the old fernery on the terraced ‘Mound’ at Coombe Wood

High Leigh, on the outskirts of Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, is only just over a mile from the Pulham Manufactory in Broxbourne.   The owner was Robert Barclay, a member of the famous banking dynasty.   Over the generations, his ancestors had married into a number of other banking families, and Robert was responsible for merging twenty banks into Barclay and Company Ltd. [i]   He would almost certainly have known James 2 personally, because his family had been leading members of the Quaker fraternity for many years – as, I am sure, were the Pulhams – and they probably attended the same Friends Meeting House in Hoddesdon.

 Fig 1  -  The back of High Leigh c1900, with a Pulham fountain – and two vases – in the foreground   (Photo reproduced by permission of High Leigh Archives)

 His wife, Elizabeth Ellen Buxton, was also likely to have met the Pulhams through a number of family connections.   Her father was a member of the Board of Truman, Hanbury and Buxton, so one link would have been via Robert Hanbury 1 and Robert Hanbury 2, owners of Poles Park, Ware, and Bedwell Park – see Site of the Month No 4, September 2011 – respectively.  

 Fig 2  -  Rockery and cave c1900   (Photo reproduced by permission of High Leigh Archives)

 Fig 3  -  The rockery and cave at High Leigh in 2000

 According to James 2’s promotional booklet, [ii] the improvements at High Leigh included the construction of:

‘Pulhamite rockwork, cave, grotto, cascade, and a pathway across water.’  

This is by no means one of his largest creations, but it is nevertheless interesting, because it presents several typical Pulham features within a comparatively small area.   In view of its close proximity to the Pulham headquarters at Broxbourne, one could almost imagine it being used in its early days as a sort of local showplace, where James 2 could arrange to present a range of his work to potential clients.

 Fig 4  -  Sunken pump house at ‘High Leigh’

 Fig 2 shows the cave and grotto – really a sort of mini boathouse – and cascade, as they were in 1900, while Fig 3 shows them in 2000.   This is the centrepiece of the installation, and the water used to be circulated by a pump situated just above the top level of the cascade, drawing water up from the lake.   The pump was powered by a donkey walking round and round inside a sunken chamber near the top of the cascade, (Fig 4), and, although the interior of the pump house is nothing more than a circular underground room, James 2 even went to the trouble of rusticating the outside of the entrance (not shown here) in his own inimitable style.  

The stream flows from the cascade, under a small bridge, and into a lake, and, returning to the house from here, one encounters another of Pulham’s hallmarks – a ‘rock archway’, pictured in Fig 5.   The only part of this structure that still remains is the core of bricks, so any Pulhamite coating must have disintegrated since.

 Fig 5  – The ‘rock archway’ on the way back to the house at ‘High Leigh’

I have to admit that, on my first visit in 2000, my initial reaction to this site was one of slight disappointment, because the special Pulham features were considerably overgrown.   There is, however, a good reason for this.   High Leigh is now a Conference Centre run by the Christian Conference Trust, so the accent is far more on economically priced conference facilities than it is on garden maintenance.   As a registered charity, all operating profits – such as they are – have to be channelled primarily into the provision and extension of accommodation, which consequently makes it extremely difficult to find money for the provision of the labour that would be required to bring this rock feature back to life.   Considerable progress had been made by the time of my second visit in 2003, – a new ‘strimmer-type’ machine had been acquired, and put to very effective use – but, when I returned again in 2009, the site had drifted back into a state of sad neglect.

 Fig 6  -  The South Lodge Bridge over the stream  in Cock Lane, Hoddesdon

 At the southern entrance to the old ‘High Leigh’ estate, there is a ‘Pulham Bridge’ that is listed and highly prized.   Fig 6 shows that this is still in remarkably fine condition – well preserved and tactile – and this is what local historian Sue Garside had to say about it: [iii]

‘In Hoddesdon, an example of the company’s (Pulham’s) work can be seen in Barclay Park.   When the park was part of the ‘High Leigh’ estate, Mr Barclay had a lodge built in Cock Lane, with a drive leading up to ‘High Leigh’ from the south.   Pulhams built the ornamental bridge crossing the stream to this lodge.   James Pulham Senior (James 2) also did much external restoration of churches, including work on the Broxbourne Parish Church in the 1850s.’ (as discussed in Chapter 3 of Pulham Rock Gardens)

James Pulham and Son did not create very many gardens in Scotland, but one in which they were involved was right up in the north-east – at Ardross Castle, in Alness, Ross-shire.   At the beginning of the 20^th century, Ardross Castle was the summer retreat of Charles Dyson Perrins, Director of the family firm of Lee and Perrins, makers of the famous Worcestershire Sauce.   Perrins’ main home was in Malvern, Worcestershire, where he engaged James 3 to landscape his gardens c1901-05, with one of its most striking features being a Pulhamite-lined tunnel – complete with a liberal scattering of ‘stalactites’ – that ran beneath a road that separated two parts of the garden.   The family spent several months each year at Ardross, with house parties enjoying the grouse moors, fishing and deer forests.  

 Fig 1  -  Curved staircase leading down from forecourt to terraced landing at Ardross Castle   (Photo by Ros Jemmett)

He took a keen interest in his gardens, and, in 1909, engaged Edward White – son-in-law of Henry Ernest Milner – to design a formal garden and terrace for the east front of the Castle.   It was in the Italianate style, with an impressive curved double staircase leading from the balustraded forecourt to a stone-flagged terrace-landing, which was decorated with a niche and half-wellhead set into the retaining wall of the forecourt, as shown in Fig 1.  

The second, broad terrace – reached from the top terrace by a single stone flight of steps ornamented with urns – is symmetrically set with two sunken square beds decorated with marble wellheads and benches.   As can be seen in Fig 2, a central stairway – flanked by a pair of sculptured lead stags mounted on stone encasements – leads down from here to the lower, central rectangular compartment that is set to lawn, and lined with cypress trees within a cypress hedge.   Rectangular formal beds flank the central path, and, at the far (eastern) end, the path leads through a low wall to a square compartment set with a circular ornamental pool and sculpture.

 Fig 2  -  The Formal East Garden at Ardross Castle c1920   (Picture provided by Ros Jemmett)

 Pulhams worked with Edward White on a number of assignments, and these gardens are a very good illustration of the way the firm had expanded their portfolio of expertise to keep up with the evolving garden styles of the Edwardian years.   The fact that they were involved here is substantiated on the Historic Gardens of Scotland website, which records that:

‘. . Following the Milners’ tradition, White worked with the company Pulham and Son, who supplied rockwork and artificial stone features for Ardross. . . ’ [i]

It goes on to say that the design of the wrought ironwork and statuary was done by the Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts, which indicates that, although Pulhams manufactured, supplied and installed the stonework, it was probably not to their own design.   This balustrading pattern does not appear in their Garden Ornament Catalogue published c1925, but is nevertheless very much in their general style.

Three wrought iron gates lead out from the far compartment to a series of informal walks and glades enclosed by shrubberies and ornamental planting.   The central gateway leads to a flight of steps and through a water garden laid out with natural rock and Pulhamite stone along a natural watercourse.   This led in turn to an informal pool and rocky cascade – features that no longer survive.

Fig 3  -  Bridge across source pond to stream at Ardross Castle   (Photo by Ros Jemmett)

 The second gate, to the south of the far compartment, leads out to an azalea walk, and the third heads north, across an elaborate masonry bridge – pictured in Fig 3 – which crosses the source pond.   It can be seen from this picture that the elegant and intricate balustrading of this bridge matches that of the forecourt and staircases near the Castle.

The Ardross estate was broken up and sold in 1937.   The next owners lived there until 1983, when the estate was purchased by the McTaggart family, who have since been extremely active in bringing the Formal Garden, Walled Garden, shrubberies and lawns back into good management.   It is another excellent example of what can be achieved by the efforts of people who are prepared to invest time, hard work and money in the restoration of their ‘Pulham Legacies’, and of how rewarding and worthwhile this work has proved.

Granville W.G. Leveson Gower – an amateur historian, archaeologist and antiquarian – inherited ‘Titsey Place’, near Oxted, Surrey, during the late 19^th century, and laid out the framework of the gardens, ‘joining the lakes together, and giving the lakes more of a “naturalistic” shape.’ [i]   The lakes are fed from a chalybeate spring that bubbles up from under a rock in the middle of the gardens, and flows through a stream into the top lake, and then tumbles over a waterfall, under a stone bridge, and into the lower lake.   The waterfall is shown in Fig 1, and the bridge is pictured in Fig 2.

Fig 1  -  The cascade at ‘Titsey Place’

James 2 was obviously involved here, because his booklet[ii] contains the following note:

‘Waterfalls and rocks, with a bridge across the rocks, in part stone and part artificial stone.’

The date ascribed to this work is c1871, and it is sadly obvious that the waterfall must have deteriorated quite a lot over the years.   One would normally expect its face to be adorned with Pulhamite rockwork, but these have weathered away, and one can now only see the remains of those on the banks and under the bridge.

Fig 2  -  The bridge at ‘Titsey Place’

The bridge itself is rather more ornamental than most of Pulhams’ later bridges, with an intricate stone facing and round piers at both ends.   These are the only obvious Pulham features in these gardens, so ‘Titsey Place’ can hardly be regarded as a major site.

One of Pulhams’ smaller works in public parks during the 1890s was in St James’s Park, London.   The land here used to be a swamp, subject to flooding from the Tyburn stream, which still flows through the lake.   Henry VIII acquired it in 1532, and enclosed it for the hunt.   It became a fashionable promenade for London’s high society in the 18^th century and, in 1838, it was completely re-designed by John Nash in the English landscaping style that he had learned through his association with Humphry Repton.   Its romantic curves, winding paths, and abundance of shrubberies all help to qualify it as one of the most beautiful and interesting parks in London.[i]

  Fig 1 -  The rocks along the bank of Duck Island, in St James’s Park, London

 Writing in an article in the Journal of The Garden History Society in 1984, [ii] Sally Festing records that James Pulham and Son were invited to construct:

‘Rockwork to the lake edge, and Cormorant and Pelican islands.’

This work was completed in two sections, during 1895 and 1899, and Ms Festing goes on to say:

‘At St James’s Park, Cormorant and Pelican rocks were built largely as perches for exotic birds in the south-east corner of the south-east arm of the lake in 1895 and 1899 respectively.   Craggy and majestic, they rise from the leafy-reflected waters. Few would guess that they had been cemented and modelled with a trowel.’

 Fig 2  -  Looking back to the Park from Duck Island

Fig 3  -  The rocky pool along the bank of Duck Island

 Fig 1 shows the three ‘craggy and majestic rocks’ viewed from the footpath around the lake, while Fig 2 shows them viewed from Duck Island itself, looking back towards the Park.   There is also a small rocky pool along the inner bank of the island that is not visible from the pathway around the edge of the lake.   This is shown in Fig 3.

Bedwell Park was the home of Robert Hanbury, son of Robert Hanbury Snr, who was a Senior Partner in the firm of Truman, Hanbury and Buxton, one the leading brewing firms in London.   Robert Snr lived at Poles Park – a few miles away near Ware – where James Pulham and Son had worked in 1865.   Shortly before his early death (at the age of 44) in 1867, Robert Jnr commissioned James 2 to construct a:

‘Fernery, and cliffs to hide walled garden; Root House for ferns and shrubs . .’

 Fig 1  -  Inside face of the wall to the Kitchen Garden at Bedwell Park

. . at Bedwell Park – possibly after seeing what the firm had done for his father at Poles Park.   There was a Walled Garden at Bedwell Park, only about 80 yards away, and in direct line of sight from the house, and the idea was to screen the tall, blank wall from view – in much the same way as the rockwork in Battersea Park was built to screen the view of Clapham Junction railway station, discussed in Chapter 6 of the book.

  Fig 2  -  Rockwork ‘Cliffs’ along the outside of the Kitchen Garden Wall

Fig 3  -  Entrance to a tunnel leading to the fernery at Bedwell Park

The wall is about 15-18ft high, and, when I visited in 2002, was still in very good condition, and reasonably maintained.   Fig 1 is a picture of the blank wall, taken from inside the garden, and Fig 2 shows the outside – which is about 50 yards long, and visible from the house.   It is covered with Pulhams’ rockwork ‘cliffs’, which extend a short way round the corners at each end, and there are planting pockets all along it.  

Fig 4  -  Small grotto, or dropping well, at end of wall

Fig 5  -  A ‘Pulham Face’ to fend off evil spirits

There is the entrance to a small tunnel about half way along the wall – shown in Fig 3 – and this turns out to be the entrance to what must have been the fernery or ‘root house’ mentioned in Pulham’s notes.   It is quite small, quite out of sight, and used to have a glass roof, but that no longer exists.   There is also a small grotto, or dropping well, at the left end of the wall, and this is shown in Fig 4.

Walking back to the house from the ‘cliff,’ I noticed a typical ‘Pulham face’ on the wall of the house, between the two windows, shown in Fig 5.   Pulhams often modelled faces to adorn the outside of doors or windows, and this is believed to hark back to the superstition that they helped to keep the evil spirits at bay.  

 Fig 6  -  The freshly painted plastered Dining room ceiling at Bedwell Park

Looking in through the windows, to what was then the dining room of the London Hatfield Golf Club – soon to be sold for redevelopment – I then saw a freshly painted plaster ceiling, shown here in Fig 6.   The Pulham craftsmen used to be expert plasterers, and elaborately ornate plaster ceilings can be found at many places where the firm are known to have worked on landscaping projects, so – although I have so far found no documentary evidence to substantiate such a claim – I like to think that these may be further examples of their work.

Sunningdale Park is situated in what once used to be part of Windsor Great Park, and still contains a Spanish Chestnut tree – with a girth in excess of twenty feet! – that dates back to the time of Henry VIII.   James Wyatt built the first house at Sunningdale in 1785, and, over the years, this was rebuilt and enlarged by its successive owners until Major William James Joicey - of the Northern mining family – bought it in 1890.

Fig 1  -  The rocky bank and boat cave on the edge of the lake at Sunningdale Park   (Photo by Ellie Johnson)

 The original gardens at Sunningdale are reputed to have been laid out for James Wyatt by a student of ‘Capability’ Brown in 1786, but several changes were made over the next century or so.   The most significant were during the late 1890s, under the direction of Major Joicey, who commissioned James 3 to enlarge the lake, and create an area of ornamental rockwork between that and the house.

The Joiceys were very enthusiastic gardeners, and the Major was particularly interested in orchids.   His Head Gardener was Mr F J Thorne, who – according to a report in Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener dated 5^th July 1899 – was obviously a very busy man:

‘. . . At Sunningdale, there is much which gladdens the eye . . . It is about six years ago since the writer first went to Sunningdale, and was then much interested in the grounds and the glass structures, but in the interim the face of Nature has been changed, and one would, but for some salient features that must never be removed, scarcely recognise the place.   The pleasure grounds have been altered in a most skilful manner, and the result is that though their dimensions remain practically the same, the extent is apparently much greater.  

Fig 2  -  The rustic wooden bridge over the stream at Sunningdale Park

‘It is in cases such as these that the skill of the landscape gardener is evidenced, as he seizes salient points, emphasises them, and covers defects in some manner that must be governed by the immediate surroundings.   Perhaps the most marked improvement has been effected in the neighbourhood of the lake, which was originally of somewhat formal design, and of such shape that the whole of the water could be seen in one coup d’æil from several different points.

‘The gardener in chief was, of course, anxious that this should be improved upon, and being a very considerable piece of work, it was placed in the hands of Pulham and Son, whose skill in such matters as these is world renowned.   The water has now been margined with rock, and as the banks have been skilfully contracted here and expanded there, the appearance of a great deal more water has been secured.   Jutting rocks have formed a congenial resting place for hardy plants, which in a few years will produce a very handsome effect.   At the head of the lake the rocks have been thrown up to form cascades, with divisional resting pools, and already, though scarcely completed, looks charming. . . .’

Based on the fact that this article was published in the summer of 1899, when the work was ‘scarcely completed’, it seems fair to conclude that the rockwork was constructed c1898-99, under the direction of James 3.     Further confirmation is contained in the diary of a Pulham rock builder – referred to in the book – in which he notes that he visited Sunningdale Park during January 1906 to make some ‘alterations to lake’.

Following the death of William Joicey in 1912, Sunningdale remained unsold for several years, and the gardens fell into disrepair.   It became the home of the Civil Service College in 1969, and the house was named after the Right Hon Sir Stafford Northcote, who was one of those responsible for the reorganisation of the Board of Trade and the Permanent Civil Service.   The house was Grade II listed in 1998, and the gardens in 2003.

Fig 3  -  The top rock garden at Sunningdale Park

 There is a boat cave and rocks at the end of the lake nearest the house – Fig 1 – and the stream feeding the lake is pumped over a Pulhamite cascade, and along a ‘cliff lined gorge’ that passes through a couple of holding pools.   Fig 2 shows a rustic wooden bridge that crosses the gorge, and this held a particular interest for me, as I had seen a number of archive pictures of Pulham sites in which such bridges featured, but, when visiting the sites, had always found that they had had to be replaced by stone ones some years later.   I therefore concluded that the wooden ones were less durable, and probably became more dangerous over time.   The one at Sunningdale was the first and only one I had seen, so I asked if it might be a masterful reproduction of the original.   Our guide did not think so because, although there had certainly been some underpinning, and the base supports had been replaced at some time, the superstructure was, to the best of his knowledge, original.

There is a very ‘Pulhamesque’ flight of rusticated steps that leads from here to the top terrace garden, shown in Fig 3.   The main feature here is a small, attractive Pulhamite rock garden, into which was incorporated a grotto (Fig 4).

Fig 4  -  The grotto in the top rock garden at Sunningdale Park

 The parkland at Sunningdale is generally kept in very good condition, although, at the time of my visit in 2005, the banks immediately surrounding the lake were a little disappointing and overgrown.   Routine maintenance work is kept well under control, but little money or time is left to focus on specific problems, one of which happens to be a small leakage in the water system flowing through the Pulham gorge  

While discussing the wooden bridge, my guide asked if Pulhams also built other structures, like summerhouses.   They did – especially around the turn of the century – so the answer had to be yes.    ‘Well, come and have a look at this one,’ he said,  ‘Because we understand that this was built at the same time the gardens were reconstructed.’

Fig 5  -  The summerhouse at Sunningdale Park

So off we went, right down to the far end of the lawns, where I took the picture shown here in Fig 5.   One cannot be absolutely certain about this, because no records remain, but this charming little building was obviously constructed specifically for this particular location.   My conclusion is consequently circumstantial – if it was built around the time the Pulham workers were on site, it is known that part of their team would have been quite capable of doing it, so why would Major Joicey have brought in someone else to build just that summerhouse?  

This was a very interesting visit, and I am sure that Pulhams had quite a substantial influence in the 1890s development of the gardens at Sunningdale Park.

This month’s Site of the Month is one of James 2’s earlier assignments.   One of the very first ferneries he constructed was built in 1858, in the basement of Ponsbourne House, in the village of Newgate Street, near Hertford, Hertfordshire – just a few miles away from his new manufactory in Broxbourne.   Ponsbourne was then the home of Mr J Levick, and became St Dominic’s Priory just after World War 2.   It then became a hotel, before being taken over by Tesco Plc as a Management Training Centre.   It is currently a hotel run by the de Vere Group.

James 2 published a promotional booklet c1877, entitled Picturesque Ferneries and Rock Garden Scenery, in which he appended a list of his ‘satisfied clients’ up to that date.   His descriptive notes were extremely cryptic, but, according to these, his work at Ponsbourne involved the construction of a:

‘Rocky pond, fernery’

This is barely sufficient to create much of an impression in the reader’s mind as to what was involved, the following notes written by a lady (name unknown) who knew the fernery during its time as St Monica’s Priory provides a much clearer picture:

‘When I was at school at Ponsbourne in 1945, the fernery was in what we knew as the ‘Winter Garden’, which was used as a Chapel for the pupils. In those days, there was a waterfall cascading down over the rocks into a pool that ran along most of the length of the base, and contained goldfish. The pockets in the rock face all contained plants of various kinds, and the whole thing was a source of wonder and delight to a small girl.

Fig 1 – What used to be the Fernery at Ponsbourne Hotel, Cheshunt (Photo by Kate Harwood)

‘There was a series of small pools and a waterfall in the gardens to the west of the terrace, and, deeper into the woodland were some rather larger pools constructed with large rocks, which we were allowed to ‘swim’ in during the summer.

‘Many years later, when Ponsbourne was a hotel, I used to look after the hotel flowers, and pick foliage in what were still beautiful gardens. I also volunteered to look after the fernery in what was then known as the ‘Garden Room’. This was an uphill task, as drinks were poured into the fish pools, killing the fish, and the lower plants also suffered from a surfeit of cigarette ends! The hotel owners had removed the glass dome in the garden room – fire regulations – and replaced it with a plastered ceiling. The loss of light was not helpful to the plants.

‘I left the hotel in 1986-87, when Tesco purchased it as a training centre . . (and) . . was very dismayed some time later to see the fernery standing very forlornly in the grounds of Capel Manor, and was very sad to hear that it has now disappeared altogether.’

Fig 2 – The Ponsbourne Fernery Wall after its ‘re-erection’ in the grounds of Capel Manor Horticultural College and Environment Centre in Enfield. It has since been removed.

As is implied in this lady’s notes, the fernery at Ponsbourne was actually built in a ground floor ’reception’ room known as the ‘Winter Garden’, and the picture in Fig 1 was taken when the table was laid out in preparation for a hotel function. The fernery was built against the wall, and had planting pockets for ferns, and a shallow gully at the bottom.

When Tesco took over the hotel, it was decided that the fernery was no longer needed, so the ‘wall’ was moved, piece by piece, to the Capel Manor Horticultural College and Environment Centre in Enfield, and erected as a wall ‘in the style of Pulham’, as shown in Fig 2. Heaven only knows what James 2 would have thought of it, but this, too, has since been mercifully dismantled, and no longer exists.

Fig 3 – Stepping stones over the stream at Ponsbourne

The ‘small pools and a rocky stream’ referred to by the lady in her letter do still survive in the grounds, albeit in a somewhat overgrown state, as can be seen from Fig 3. It is only quite a small stream, rising from a culvert, and winding its very pleasant way over a couple of small cascades before disappearing into another culvert some 100 yards away.

In another part of the grounds is the Walled Garden, which is a very interesting feature. It is not mentioned in Pulham’s notes – either because it was not a fernery or a rock garden feature, or because it was constructed at a later date – but the high wall with its ball terminals has all the hallmarks of a Pulham construction. There are indeed Walled Gardens on a number of sites on which the Pulhams are known to have worked, all dating from around the time that their work was done, and the general style of this example – particularly the impressive entrance, with a curved seat on either side that continues its circular sweep – is typical of their work. It is pictured here in Fig 4.

Fig 4 – Entrance to the Walled Garden at Ponsbourne

 It’s almost here – the first authoritative book on the lives and work of James Pulham and Son, the eminent firm of Victorian and Edwardian landscape artists.   Written by Claude Hitching - five of whose ancestors worked for the firm as ‘rock builders’ – the book contains:

• A Foreword by Mavis Batey, Vice President and Past President of the Garden History Society.
• A brief background history of James Pulham and Son
• An overview of Pulhams’ Manufactory, and examples of some of the wonderful terracotta garden ornaments produced there.
• Reviews of more than 40 of the most prestigious Pulham gardens and Parks that still exist today, including those at Buckingham Palace, Sandringham, Waddesdon Manor, Madresfield Court, Dewstow, Friar Park etc.
• Stunning photographs taken by Jenny Lilly, the professional garden photograoher.
• A Chronological Gazetteer of all known Pulham sites.
• Superbly produced and published by The Antique Collectors’ Club.

Click on the Cover Image for more details about the Book, and how to place an Order when it becomes available.

1890  -  Leonardslee Gardens, Horsham, Sussex

Set in a tranquil woodland valley in West Sussex, the Leonardslee gardens are one of the largest and most spectacular in England.   A small stream runs along the bottom of the valley, and spreads out at intervals into a series of lakes, and the whole valley has a background of old oak, beech and birch, intermingled with larch and Scots pine.   The soil is a light loam overlaying fine-grained Cretaceous sandstone, and ericaceous plants – such as rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias and magnolias – all flourish well here.

The first ornamental plantings at Leonardslee are accredited to the Beauclerk family, who purchased this part of the old Aldridge estate in 1801.   Sir Edmund Loder – who was also a very keen gardener, with a particular interest in exotic plants that he had seen during his travels overseas – purchased the estate in 1889, and immediately set about planting an incredible amount of flora in a very short space of time.   He was also very interested in exotic animals, and stocked the pleasure grounds with antelopes, beavers, kangaroos and wallabies etc.   He engaged James 2 to build him a Pulhamite enclosure for his moufflon and mountain sheep, and there are caves inside the ‘mound’ – where they could be penned, or sheltered – that were still used as wallaby breeding pens until June 2010, when the estate was sold, and sadly closed to the public.

Sir Edmund arranged his plants in large groups, taking care to produce fine colour effects without losing the natural woodland character of the setting, and one of the sections to which he paid particular attention was the rock garden, for which he turned for help from James 2.   They excavated the site, leaving two high mounds in the centre, and then planted a ring of conifers round the top to create a more sheltered environment.   The entrance path runs roughly down the centre and around the mounds, so they form what looks like a rather squashed figure of eight, and then there is another path around the top of the main ‘cliff’ at the far end, which acts as an excellent vantage point, as can be seen from Figs 1 and 2.

The rock garden does not cover a particularly large area, but could be described as a ‘confection’ of exotic plants, and looks particularly superb in the spring, when the azaleas are in bloom.   The rocks are a mixture of natural and artificial cretaceous sandstone, and, as at Sandringham – discussed in The Pulham Legacy - the Pulhamite imitation is so good that the plant pockets provide almost the only clue that would enable the visitor to distinguish one from the other.   In fact, Robin Loder – Leonardslee’s owner until 2005, when he retired and handed over the management of the gardens to his son, Christopher – recalled how he had always assumed that the huge boulders at the base of the rockwork were genuine rock until, one day, he found a rabbit hole under the base of one of them.   While trying to plug the hole with netting, he found that the base of the largest boulder was made of brick – ‘and there wasn’t much of that about in the Cretaceous era!’   The planting pockets are home to a variety of flowering shrubs amidst the dwarf conifers.

Fig 1 is a picture of the ‘cliff’ at the far end of the garden, taken from the central path, whilst` Fig 2 shows the view looking down the eastern side from the top of the cliff.   Fig 3 shows the view to the south, and Fig 4 looks down towards the central path.   Having strolled around and enjoyed this garden at their leisure, visitors should not have left Leonardslee without remembering to look in at the wallaby enclosures – another of Pulham’s contributions – shown in Fig 5.   They still lived here with their rock breeding pens in 2009, but the exact date on which the ‘rock builders’ visited Leonardslee is not known for sure.   In view of the above details taken from the Leonardslee Gardens brochure, however, my suggestion of 1890 must be close.