THE GARDEN OF WEST LAVINGTON MANOR
Behind the high wall along the east side of Church Street in West Lavington lie five acres of landscape garden, completely hidden from the road. Into this secret kingdom Mr and Mrs John Lush invited members of the Wiltshire Gardens Trust who had volunteered to help with garden surveys. They found a wide expanse of lawn extending south-eastwards from the house, leading to a sunken rose garden. From this, a sweep of grass slopes down through trees to the south boundary wall. At its lowest part, a stream flows in through an opening in the wall, widening into a small lake before flowing on through a brick-walled channel and out through a large rusticated arch in the high wall which encloses the garden to the north. The grass slopes either side of the stream have scattered trees, including a mulberry, tulip trees and a swamp cypress. The west slope rises up to the main lawn, revetted near the top with a small retaining wall.
In recent years, the grounds had been given only minimum maintenance by the company which hired the manor house out for receptions. But since the Lush's took over, the gardeners' hours have tripled and the garden is being revived. John Lush has also been investigating the garden's history, going back to the description of it by John Aubrey in his Natural History of Wiltshire, written between 1656 and 1686. This starts with an encomium of Sir John Danvers, who inherited the manor through his wife, Elizabeth Dauntsey, in 1630:
". . . 'twas Sir John Danvers, of Chelsey, who first taught us the way of Italian gardens. He had well travelled France and Italy, and made good observations . . . He had a very fine fancy, which lay chiefly for gardens and architecture.
"The garden at Lavington in this county, and that at Chelsey in Middlesex, as likewise the house there, doe romaine monuments of his ingenuity. The garden at Lavington is full of irregularities, both natural and artificial, sc. elevations and depressions. Through the length of it there runneth a fine cleare trowt stream; walled with brick on each side, to hinder the earth from mouldring down. In this stream are placed severall statues. At the west end is an admirable place for a grotto, where the great arch is, over which now is the market roade. Among several! others, there is a very pleasant elevation on the south side of the garden, which steales, arising almost insensibly, that is, before one is aware, and gives a view over the spatious corn-fields there, and so to East Lavington: where, being landed on a fine levell, letteth you descend again with the like easinesse; each side is flanqued with laurells. It is almost impossible to describe this garden, it is so full of variety and unevenesse; nay, it would be a difficult matter for a good artist to make a draught of it. About An°. 1686, the right honourable James Earle of Abingdon [who had become possessed of the estate in right of his wife], built a noble portico, full of water workes, which is on the north side of the garden, and faceth the south. It is both portico and grott, and was designed by Mr Rose, of . . ., in Oxfordshire."
"Almost impossible to describe" - that tantalising phrase. Unfortunately, all trace of the garden has disappeared, according to the standard accounts. Yet some parts of Aubrey's description can still be recognised. The "stream, walled with brick on each side" still runs through the north part of the garden, and the southern end was only changed to a lake some time in the last forty years. The "great arch . . . over which now is the market road", still supports a raised path, partly blocked by trees, but clearly fitting Aubrey's description, except that he put it at the west end, whereas the high wall with its arch actually forms the north side of the garden. This means that the "very pleasant elevation ..., which steales, arising almost insensibly ... and gives you a view over the spatious cornfields . . ." describes the slope up from the west side of the stream to the lawn that stretches south from the house.
Aubrey describes the great arch as "an admirable place for a grotto". But he says that about 1686 the Earl of Abingdon "built a noble grotto, full of water workes" on the north side of the garden. If he was still confusing his orientation, this would have been on the east side of the stream. Either way, we could see no trace of it. Considering how often gardens are made over by their new owners, it would be remarkable if anything recognisable remained of the "irregularities", "variety and unevenesse" that distinguished it in the seventeenth century. Aerial photographs of archaeological sites often show traces of earthworks and foundations, but the air photographs held in the National Monuments Record in Swindon were not taken in the low level sun needed to show bumps and depressions, nor after a drought, when scorch marks in the grass can betray hidden foundations, so this line of inquiry was a dead end. (In any case, the garden on the air photos is less than the size of a postage stamp, so it is hard to make out any detail).
The large scale Ordnance Survey maps are very useful for tracing the development of an estate: looking at the maps in the Wiltshire Record Office in Trowbridge, one could see that between 1900 and 1924, probably soon after the purchase of the house in 1905 by Thomas Holloway the builder, who reconstructed and extended the old house in 1908, the sunk rose garden was established and a raised square of garden near the house flattened to form the lawn as it is today, bounded by a retaining wall that ziz-zags round the rose garden. The slopes on each side of the stream were planted as an orchard. (Air photos showed this apparently being replanted in 1944 to 1945). At the north end these slopes were enclosed by a hedge, presumably for a vegetable garden. Between 1900 and 1924, a large greenhouse was built against the north wall, hiding the great arch. There are no greenhouses on the earliest map of 1887. Otherwise the layout is the same. All the maps up to 1936 show a fence, hedge or other feature parallel to the main boundary walls. From the air photos it would seem that this may have been a pergola with plants growing over to form a covered walk, similar to those described for 17th century gardens. By the time of the latest Ordnance map (1990?), this had disappeared.
Prior to the large scale Ordnance maps, there was a careful survey of the parish for the 1841 Tithe Award. Unfortunately, it does no more than enumerate the various plots of ground for which the owners paid tithes. The next stage back into the past is Andrews and Dury's map of Wiltshire, published in 1773. This is to quite a small scale; the details of gardens can hardly be accurate, but may indicate the type of layout, or may be standard representations of rectangular plots and gravel walks. However, the map shows the stream with garden areas on either side, bounded on the west side by a wall, the southern part of which is shown on a similar line to the retaining wall built between 1900 and 1924. Within this wall, two ponds are shown, fed by the stream, but it is difficult to reconcile these with the slope of the ground as it exists today. There is no sign of the grotto described by Aubrey. The upper part of the garden is shown laid out with beds and paths, but this is partly obscured by a picture of the house, which seems to be a purely conventional representation.
It would be surprising if the garden laid out by Sir John Danvers had survived for over a hundred years without major alteration, so Andrews and Dury's map may not be much help. But the garden was evidently an important one, and regarded by Aubrey as a significant example of the new Italian style. It would be helpful to see pictures of the gardens which Sir John Danvers may have visited on his travels in France and Italy. In the meantime, the torso of a statue has been dug up in the garden, which may be a fragment of one of those that stood in the stream. We hope that other traces may come to light to help solve the mystery of this historic garden.
References:
Dr C, Thacker, The Genius of Gardening, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1994.
John Aubrey, Natural History of Wiltshire, edited by John Britton, F.S.A., introduced by K. G. Ponting, Newton Abbot.David & Charles, 1969.
W.R. Powell and Elizabeth Crittall, West or Bishop's Lavington, in Victoria County History: Wiltshire, Volume VII, London. Oxford University Press, 1953.
J. Andrews and A. Dury, A Map of Wiltshire (Taken from an Actual Survey), 1773. Ordnance Survey, Wiltshire, Sheet XLVI.2, 1887, 1900, 1924, 1936. . . . Map of the Parish of West Lavington in the County of Wilts. (surveyed for the Tithe Award, 1841). [Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office].
[Air Photograph] US/30GR/LOC 11 Library No. 8248 25 Mar 44 [National Monuments Record. Swindon].
September 9, 1999