Kingston Wood Manor Garden

By Peter Reynolds – Cambridgeshire Gardens Trust

Kingston Wood lies 210 feet above sea level on boulder clay, one and a half miles to the south-west of the village of Kingston with an access via a private drive off Ermine Street. Kingston, as the name implies, was a Vill of the Saxon crown, and the Domesday Book recalls a royal domesne of 1 hide and 3 virgates remaining in King William's hands in 1086. The wood is one of Cambridgeshire's largest ancient woodlands. By 1355 the wood increased to 100 acres and the outline of the wood in 1720 was much as it is today.

The present house dates from the late 15th or early 16th century and has its own chapel. The paper indult was granted to Constantine Mortimer in 1317 to permit celebration of mass in his chapel because access to the parish church was difficult. Frorn the Mortimers the manor passed by marriage to the Chamberlains in the mid-15th cent. Sir Robert Chamberlain was executed in 1491, and his son Ralph probably built the house that exists today. The Kingston Wood Estate was considerably engrossed in the 16th cent. Fitzralph Chamberlain acquired the manor of Kingston St. George in 1569. The Chamherlain's lands were enclosed by the early 17th c.

In 1625 the Chamberlains conveyed their lands in Kingston to the apothecary John Crane. The Manor passed through various hands to Edward. Lord Hartley (later the 2nd Earl of Oxford) in 1717 and so became part of the Wimpole Hall Estate. Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke purchased Kingston Wood Estate with Wimpole in 1739 and by the mid-19th cent. Lord Hardwicke held more than half the parish acreage. In 1904 Sir Alexander Reid Bt. brought Kingston Wood and proceeded to restore the house and enlarge the holding to more than 1000 acres. The present gardens are entirely the creation of Sir Alexander and Lady Reid.

The Manor is one of three moated sites in the parish. The moat at the Manor is hexagonal, 220 feet in diameter and the ditch is about 40 feet wide and was 4 to 6 feet deep in 1968. The 1902 OS tnap shows the area within the moat is divided into two separate enclosures to the north and the west of the house: a circular carriage drive, accessed from the SE bridge is shown and this remains today. To the SW of the moat is an outer enclosure which may represent a garden contcmporary with the house. On Cory's 1720 map this is identified as an ‘Orchard’. Four marshy ponds to the SE of the moat were probably medieval fish ponds.

Sir Alexander and Lady Reid designed the present garden between 1904 arid 1992. The moated garden has four bridges, one early 18th cent and three that have been constructed to designs by Heather Hughes, an architect friend of the Reids. Within the moat is a formal box-hedged herb garden around an old well, nearby a circular rose garden with a yew hedge with a central fountain. On the lawn are several topiary chess pieces in yew. To the north of the house is a tiled terrace and at either side of the causeway to the house is a bog garden planted with primula, hostas. rheums and other moisture loving plants.

Outside the moated enclosure are various shrubberies and to the south a herbacious border backed by a yew hedge, planted with silver and grey foliage shrubs and perennials. The old pond is lined with york stone and contains a fountain and at its eastern extremity an oriental folly. Beyond this, screened by hedges, is a swimming pool, tennis court and orchards. The NW area outside the moat is a wild flowering garden with many early flowering bulbs followed by orchids, ox-eyed daisies, poppies and other wild flowers.

The Reids brought back from China strong sentiments about the need for harmony and calm, which mixed with experiences of Japanese garden design have settled in a charming and exhilarating landscape which presents the Manor House in a wide variety of frames and backdrops.

Huon Mallaieu writing in the Sunday Telegraph August 1999 notes ‘Twenty five years ago the gardens were pastures and orchards, although they appear to be much longer established. Water is the major theme with the moat, ponds, two small lakes, bog gardens and a fountain. The house is approached by a line of limes and is the most perfectly presented house and estate I have seen’.

After 900 years recorded existence as an estate Kingston Wood was broken up by sale in 1992-93.

Peter Reynolds.

September 15, 1999