Garden history - National Trust

Mount Stewart – Circe’s Garden
Italian Garden © Georges Levique
All gardens are to a greater or lesser extent, an outpouring of artistic expression. In this
regard, Mount Stewart excels. The Formal Gardens at Mount Stewart combine a number of
idiosyncratic strands which are not easy to read at first glance, but when they are pointed
out, combine deliciously into an overarching theme. Lady Londonderry imbued Mount
Stewart with her not inconsiderable intellect, her notable achievements and her passions.
By means of a sequential tour of the principal divisions of the gardens of Mount Stewart,
this text provides a means to ‘read’ this wonderfully unique creation.
Background
A garden born of the ‘golden Edwardian afternoon’,
places Mount Stewart into the early Twentieth
Century, but beyond this statement, all attempts to
categorise the garden founder. Edith, 7th
Marchioness of Londonderry was the sole designer,
architect and client at Mount Stewart. She was ably
assisted in the practicalities by a local builder,
Thomas Beattie, a fine mason, Joe Girvan and a very
able Head Gardener, Thomas Bolas.
Thomas Bolas (left) © Margaret Taylor.
Thomas Bolas was originally from Derbyshire and trained at Chatsworth. Certainly by 1911
he was a gardener at Mount Stewart for Theresa, wife of the 6th Marquess of Londonderry,
who used the house for only a few weeks a year. Bolas understood the favourable microclimate at Mount Stewart. Situated on the narrow Ards Peninsular in a south westerly facing
natural amphitheatre on the east shore of Strangford Lough, there are few persistent frosts.
This part of Ireland is the sunniest and has a near idyllic rainfall, some 35”/900mm per
annum.
Eucalyptus globulus Tasmanian Blue Gum © National Trust
Lady Londonderry’s husband Charles had inherited Mount Stewart while he was fighting in
France in 1915. The family’s principal seat was Wynyard in Co. Durham, where the family
owned collieries. The government paid a premium for coal during World War I and so,
money was no object. Theresa, Lady Londonderry died in 1919, leaving Edith to order
Mount Stewart along with several other residences and on a visit, she must have met with
Thomas Bolas and their ideas began to coalesce. The gardens already had strong growing
Eucalyptus globulus from Tasmania planted around 1895 and Edith became aware, that the
sun and relatively low rainfall would make the growing of inland southern hemisphere
plants from the interior of South America, South Africa and Australia in addition to the
coastal species, a possibility at Mount Stewart.
Mount Stewart ƚŝĐŬĞĚŽǀĞƌĚƵƌŝŶŐƚŚĞůŽŶŐLJĞĂƌƐŽĨ WWI͘dŚĞŶin 1921, with the help of 21
demobilized men, The South Terrace and Italian Garden were laid out by Thomas Bolas
under Edith Londonderry’s direction. It is inconceivable that Lady Londonderry did not
have a master plan for the various gardens because they relate, in terms of level and
proportion so perfectly, but to date, no overarching plan has come to light. That Edith was
a scholar of garden history is evident throughout her designs, with many features adapted
from the more famous gardens of Italy.
The Sunk Garden
© National Trust / Peter Muhly
Fig 5. Sunk Garden 1930 © Lady Rose Lauritzen
The Sunk Garden and the West Terrace were excavated after the South Terrace and Italian
Garden in 1921 and ostensibly completed by 1922. Centred on the ‘Little Dining Room’ or
‘Breakfast Room’, the Sunk and in some ways the Shamrock Garden beyond are the only
parts of the garden visible from the ground floor of the house. Lord Londonderry’s bedroom
immediately above this has a panoramic view over the Sunk Garden and reveals the Red
Hand of the Shamrock Garden and in times past, a long view to Scrabo Tower, built by the
tenants of thĞϯƌĚMarquess. The pergola surrounding three sides of the Sunk Garden is
clothed with a mixture of exotic climbers and wall shrubs mixed with more common
subjects. This is the hallmark of Lady Londonderry’s planting style, the latest rare
discoveries with the best of the horticultural mainstream. The southern walk of the Pergola
is known as the Polemarch Terrace, one of Lord Londonderry’s race horses, who won the
Thousand Guineas, St. Ledger in 1921 coming in at 50:1 and is commemorated by an
inscribed stone.
On the inner edge of the
intermediary terrace is a planting of
Rhododendron coccineum Speciosum
and a series of lilies, L. pardilinum, L.
leitchlinii and L. henryi. Lady Edith’s
long-time horticultural mentor, Sir
Herbert Maxwell commented to her
in 1926 – ‘The lust for lilies is a
contagious disease as deadly as
Rhododendronitis, from which you
suffer incurably already’. A further
© Ken Cox
key to understanding Lady Londonderry’s planting style is her love of fragrance. She
famously would not have a Rose in the garden if it did not have a decent scent. Conversely
she would not have Box in the garden because she found its smell offensive. Edith made her
own potpourri and mixed essential perfume oils. So, it is not surprising her taste in both
Rhododendrons and Lilies favoured those with fragrance.
The four identical beds on the lowest plat are displayed just the way Edith recorded them in
one of her nine surviving Garden Notebooks, 1922-55. The colour scheme is predominately
blue and orange with a little red and yellow thrown in. ‘White Truimphator’ Tulips, Myosotis
and orange Crown Imperials start the display, then Anchusa and ‘Major Crombie’s Strain’ of
Delphinium grown in the 1920s at Pitmuies House near Forfar, Angus come next. Then blue
Onions and a succession of orange Lilies hold the display before the borders peak in August
with Summer Hyacinths, Dahlia ‘Bishop of Oxford’, Salvia patens, orange Gladioli and
Aconitum. As these fade, two fine blue Asters come to the fore.
The Shamrock Garden
Over the steps, the Shamrock Garden beckons. Here are complex allusions to Irish
mythology and folklore. The large Irish harp in Common Yew commands the scene.
Originally, one of three 14’ high topiary pieces. The surviving Fomorian, a half human, half
demon has now become an abstract, but was originally more menacing, blowing a trumpet,
with wings folded on his back and a dragons tail, this figure is made from Irish Yew grafted
on to a double round plinth of Common Yew. Its brother, now departed, was of similar
composition, but the figure depicted a giant Anteater rearing up on its back legs, possibly an
allusion to her nephew, Anthony the Anteater, director of Regent’s Park Zoo. A new
Fomorian is now being formed from Irish Yew.
Balor’s daughter Ethlinn holding her
son, Lugh the Sun God in her arms.
An adaption from a design of a tarot
card by Maude Gonne.
In Irish mythology, the Fomorians were
descended from Noah’s son Ham, who
migrated to North Africa, where, it said, his
people bred with a race of demons. They
washed up in Ireland after the Great Flood
and their king was the redoubtable Balor
of the Evil Eye, a monstrous creature with
a central third eye, which when opened by
some minions by way of a pulley system,
caused the poor unfortunate in his line of
vision to fall dead. Balor’s daughter was
Ethlinn who is depicted in the family burial
ground, Tir n’an Og. When the Tuatha de
Danaan, the magical race of gods,
goddesses, heroes and heroines came to
Ireland, they fought five successive battles
and Ethlinn’s son Lugh, slew Balor and the
Fomorians were defeated to live a twilight
existence in places like the shores of
Strangford Lough, or Lough Cuan in Irish.
Fomorian Topiary 1950s © Lady Rose Lauritzen
The Red Hand of Ulster © Lady Rose Lauritzen
The Red Hand of Ulster, here represented as a left hand, brings to mind the MacDonnell
legend of the two Viking brothers who would have a race in their long ships from the Mull of
Kintyre to the Antrim coast, a matter of some twenty miles or so. Whoever’s hand touched
the beach first would be the King of all Ireland. The younger brother Labraid was losing, so
he cut off his left hand and threw it on the beach, thus winning the race. The Red Hand was
adopted by the O’Neill chieftains and one of Charles ancestors was Frances Anne Vane
Tempest, the Countess of Antrim in her own right and descendent of the last King of Ulster,
Hugh O’Neill.
Fig 11. Topiary figures
Shamrock hedge 1950s.
The collaboration with
Edmund Brock – a whimsical
children’s story. © Lady Rose
Lauritzen
The Shamrock hedge used to be 4’ taller than it is today and hosted some twenty four
topiary pieces, telling a whimsical children’s story, a collaboration between Edith and the
artist, Edmund Brock. Edith had previously published the ‘Magic Ink Pot’ in 1928 with
illustrations by Edmund Brock. The inspiration for the design of the figures came from
Queen Mary’s Psalter or to be more precise, the marginalia, the doodles of the monks when
they were bored with transcription. The story begins with the Stewart family coming to
Northern Ireland in a curragh, Edith at the stern blowing a horn, the three younger children,
Helen, Margaret and Mairi under the rigging and Edmund Brock at the bow with a bottle of
whisky and the blue and yellow Macaw, Edward on his shoulder.
Flamingos – Edith, Lady
Londonderry at the lake
© Lady Rose Lauritzen
Following a long visit to India in 1904, Edith was very taken with the way in which the
Maharaja’s palaces were animated by birds and animals and she determined to do the same
at Mount Stewart. Edward flew free, there were Fan Tailed Doves in the Mairi Garden,
Terrapins in the pools of the Italian Garden, tropical tree frogs in the Spanish and Shamrock
Gardens, supplied by Anthony. Monitor Lizards in the sunken swimming pool near
Strangford Lough and Flamingos on the Lake, a gift in 1934 from King Faud of Egypt. She
herself had fourteen dogs from Scottish Deerhounds to Dachunds and Pekinese. It is for
these latter, that all the ponds at ground level have concrete steps.
Returning to our narrative in topiary,
next is a rider blowing a horn – Edith
was a great equestrian. They are
hunting the White Stag, who takes the
souls of the deceased to Tir n’an Og,
(note the Scots Gaelic spelling). If all the
figures were present, there would be
dogs and huntsmen with bows pushing
some of the younger children in
pushchairs. Then Edith is depicted as an
Amazon, bow in hand having just
‘haunched’ the White Stag with an
arrow. Gone now is the Scottish
Deerhound about to bring the stag
down. All this being essentially pagan,
The Devil now gets involved by calling
down the hawks of the air to disrupt
the hunt and rides the wounded stag to
safety. If all the figures were present,
the last would be of a boy walking
The Devil © National Trust
home disconsolately, with
nothing but a skinny hare on a
pole. It is our goal one day to
return the hedge to its original
height and depict the story
with all twenty-four topiary
pieces.
Later in life, Lady Londonderry,
loved to extend the period of
interest in her successional
planting to make the most of
the, usually, benign microclimate. In the Shamrock
Garden, there is a
predominance of scented
winter flowering subjects. Most notable of which are the
Fig. 14 Tasmanian Sweet Sassafras
Rhododendron x nobleanum which flower from
© National Trust
November to April and the fine pair of pyramidal
Tasmanian Sweet Sassafras, Atherosperma moschatum which flowers in March.
Lily Wood
The area we now know as the Lily
Wood began life as an unassuming
piece of woodland forming a part of
the shelterbelt around the garden.
Lord Londonderry enjoyed pigeon
shooting in this wood, but by 1939,
Lady Londonderry had other designs.
Much of the clearance work was
done or overseen by Edith herself, as
many of her gardeners had left to
fight as WWII unfolded. Edith had a
passion for Lilies and Meconopsis and
many other woodland plants. These
she clumped in large drifts along the
various woodland margins she
created. Chief among these were the
Giant Himalayan Lilies, Cardiocrinum
giganteum, known as ‘The Cardinals’
at Mount Stewart. These plants are
monocarpic, they die after they
flower, but each dying spire sends up
a few offsets. Left to their own
devices, these offsets would never in
Fig. 15 Cardiocrinum giganteum in
the Lily Wood ©Alan Power
themselves make large flowering spikes, but by manipulating them by feeding and mulching
them heavily with manure, they can be made into pretty reasonable flower spikes for the
following year. In addition, Thomas Bolas would have sown fresh mature seed every year to
ensure a succession of these plants and that is our approach to this day. It can take between
5-6 years to get these seedlings to flower, but they will be the most majestic of all, flowering
tall with many more fragrant trumpets per stem in early July.
Fig. 16 Lilium auratum – Edith, Lady
Londonderry © Lady Rose Lauritzen
Lily Wood always had a wilder feel in Edith’s day than it does today. There are now semiformal borders and the native trees have largely been replaced by exotic species. Following
an extensive drainage scheme in the autumn of 2013, the Lily Wood will gradually be
restocked with Lilies and Meconopsis as well as a range of hardy woodland species, where
scent is a vital constituent. Because the sea level of Strangford Lough is rising by
1.9mm/annum, sooner or later, the highly evolved plants such as Rhododendron will find
the ground water too saline for growth. These species will not be replanted in Lily Wood,
but rather relocated to the higher ground of McComb’s Hill, Ladies Walk and Rhododendron
Hill, where they will enjoy fresh groundwater and thrive.
The Italian Garden
The Dodo Terrace ©Lady Rose Lauritzen
Theatrical in its design, the ‘stage’ must be the Dodo Terrace with its classical loggia. The
inspiration and its conception and architectural detail is Italian, but there is a rich seam of
personal commemoration and allegory. The Dodos represent Edith’s father, Lord Chaplin,
satirised as such by the Westminster Gazette in 1895. Edith’s mother died when she was
three and she was brought up at Dunrobin Castle, in Scotland by her auntie Millicent, who
would in due course become the Duchess of Sutherland. The twin parterres of the Italian
Garden are a scaled down version of those at Dunrobin. Originally conceived as a Rose
Garden, in 1925 after the Roses had failed due to the light, sandy soil, a new set of colours
were painted by Edith in one of her Garden Note Books.
Fig. 18 East side – Lady Londonderry’s Garden Notebook 1922-27 © Lady Rose Lauritzen
Fig. 19 Top west side – Lady Londonderry’s Garden Notebook 1922-27 © Lady Rose Lauritzen
Fig. 20 East Italian Garden
© Walsh, September 1934.
On the Eastern side, the colours resemble those of a sunrise, like a sunburst centred on the
pool, the colours graduate from scarlet, to orange to blue to silver. On the West side, the
colours resemble those of a sunset; blood red, mauve, clear pink and yellow to plum and
mulberry hues. Edith thought herbaceous borders essentially dull. Her vision was to obtain
this colour scheme with a blend of the exotic and the mundane in perennials and bulbs,
while her gardener, Mr Bolas formed exotic flowering trees as tall standards and pyramids,
through which she planted flowering climbers. Nothing like it had been seen before and she
wrote about this planting in the RHS Garden Magazine in 1935. In the next few years, as
new standards are formed, the parterres will again look as Edith envisaged them.
The planting in the Italian Garden follows
Lady Londonderry’s colour scheme and basic
divisions. There are two or more plants per
partition forming a matrix of planting, with
subjects flowering at different times to
extend the succession. The standards and
their dependent climbers are lifted each year
to prevent them becoming too dominant and
depleting the soil at their base, preventing
the herbaceous layer from flourishing. There
are some unusual selections and
combinations within the parterres and the
display is not static, as it is in the Sunk
Garden, but rather under constant revision.
Central to the Dodo Terrace is the Ark, an
allusion to the Ark Club, a social group of
high achievers from all walks of life, Charles
and Edith initiated in 1915 in the upper
Fig. 21 Herms Italian Garden © National Trust
storeys of their Park Lane home, Londonderry House. Each Wednesday evening, soirees
were hosted where the members of the ‘Honourable Order of The Rainbow’ congregated.
Each member took an epithet; Winston Churchill was ‘Winnie the Warlock’, Neville
Chamberlain, ‘Neville the Devil’, Charles was ‘Charlie the Cheetah’ and Edith was ‘Circe the
Sorceress’. In Homer’s Odyssey, Circe is a rather naughty Goddess, with a penchant for
turning men into animals by drugging their food and tapping them on the shoulder with her
wand. When half of Odysseus’s crew come exploring her mansion on the most westerly
Greek isle of Aeaea, (an allegory for Ireland), she was evidently short of bacon, so she
turned them all into pigs. The herms of the Italian Garden, themselves representing the wall
round Circe’s mansion, depict this with half the faces showing Circe with bunches of grapes
for earrings and the rest showing Odysseus’s crew in various stages of transformation. The
tall Eucalyptus globulus and other flowering trees and shrubs give a sense of the exotic wild
wood of the magical, enchanted isle.
It is possible that Lady Londonderry used a
painting housed at Mount Stewart as the
inspiration for the crew members transforming
faces. Richard Dadd’s ‘Bacchanalian Scene’, may
have been the inspiration for Thomas Beattie’s
mould for the herms of the Italian Garden. In
Homer’s narrative, Odysseus meets his
Grandfather, Hermes who gives him the antidote
to Circe’s drug. There was a silver statue of
Hermes in the Dairy, constructed with tiled roof of
the 18th Century Ice Well.
Fig. 22 Hermes
© Lady Rose Lauritzen
The Spanish Garden
Fig. 23 Exhedra Arch Spanish Garden © Hogg 1927, Ulster Museum
Fig. 24 Spanish Garden 2014 © National Trust
The Spanish Garden forms a sunken extension of the principal axis of the Italian Garden.
This main axis runs from the portico of the house, across the Sea Plantation and Strangford
Lough and terminates at Slieve Donard, the highest of the peaks of the distant Mourne
Mountains. Originally, Lady Londonderry created a grand exedra colonnade, flanked by twin
columns surmounted by Stewart dragons, which centred on both Lord Londonderry’s and
her father’s, Viscount Chaplin’s, coats of arms. Unfortunately, these coats of arms obscured
the fine view from the South Terrace and central Smoking Room to the distant Mourne
Mountains and Lady Londonderry had the entire colonnade dismantled, retaining the twin
dragon columns. She then incorporated the two coats of arms within the portico of the
house and embarked on the Spanish Garden to provide a new focus for the all-important
central axis. As the volume of traffic on the A20 became intrusive in the 1970s, Lady Edith’s
daughter Lady Mairi, reluctantly agreed to plant the Leyland Cypress hedge.
Lady Londonderry’s design for the Spanish Garden was born of her scholarship of historic
gardens with a few of her own innovations. The design of the central pond was inspired by
the plasterwork of the ceiling of the Little Dining Room or Breakfast Room, the only room on
the ground floor of the house to relate to the garden directly. The focal building has a
beautiful hipped roof with glaucous glazed tiles, reminiscent of the characteristic roof shape
of the pavilions found in the Islamic Gardens of Spain. Edith had visited many of these
gardens and one in particular was to provide a further source of inspiration. The Generalife
gardens were still privately owned when Lady Londonderry visited them from her uncle’s
yacht prior to WWI. There is an early Sixteenth Century description by the Venetian
Traveller Andrea Navagero, describing a tall wall of Cypress hedge grown to create arched
openings, bounding the long, central water parterre, whose focus is the distant Alhambra
Palace.
To complete the design, Lady
Londonderry acquired an antique
wellhead from Lombardy made from
a salmon coloured limestone,
depicting the Weighing of the Souls
from the Chelsea Flower Show in
1926. She positioned this on a round
plinth at the top of the exedra steps.
This in turn, provided the rationale for
the planting scheme, which should
aspire to be Mediterranean in
inspiration and should be a contrast
of a prevalence of salmon pink flower
and blue/green foliage.
Fig. 25 Well Head Spanish © National Trust
The Peace Garden
By comparison to the
gardens surrounding the
Peace Garden, this
compartment is
comparatively simple
and calm in its feel. The
reason for this is that it
was used as a rather
informal cemetery for
the family’s pets.
Fig. 26 The Peace Garden
© National Trust
The Fountain Walk
Situated between the Mairi
Garden and the Dodo Terrace, this
was the main entrance from a
small Car Park, east of the Bird
Fountain, which lead to the
servant wing of the house, the
modern day reception. At some
point in the National Trust’s
management a single Cypress
arcade lined the eastern edge of
the Fountain Walk and this has
been re-instated in Cupressus
macrocarpa.
There is now graduation of colour
from the fountain from white,
blue, purple, mauve, pink, yellow,
orange and red at the further end.
Fig. 27 Fountain walk
© National Trust
The Mairi Garden
Fig 28. Mairi Garden © National Trust
The Mairi Garden
commemorates Edith’s
creation of the Women’s
Legion and the birth of her
youngest child, Lady Mairi,
born in 1921. Edith was a
suffragist at a time when
many men ridiculed the very
idea of women even riding a
bicycle, let alone holding a
career. After the outbreak of
WWI, Lady Londonderry,
founded the Women’s Legion.
A voluntary organisation
placing women into all fields
of
work
in
order
to
assist
the
war effort. In many ways,
Fig. 29 The Mairi Garden 1930s
the
formation
of
the
Ark
Club,
furthered Edith’s goals by
© Lady Rose Lauritzen
connecting her to those with the influence to effect the
necessary changes. By the conclusion of WWI, women were placed in the armed services, in
industry and engaged in agricultural work as the appalling casualties continued among
servicemen.
Lady Londonderry gave the Women’s Legion the emblem of a Tudor Rose and the Stewart
family colours, blue and white. Today, there is a succession of loosely blue and white
flowers from March to October. The Margaret Wrightson bronze was set in place by 1928
and commemorates the gift of a late uniquely photogenic child, Lady Mairi. Conceived as a
child’s garden with the fountain turned up on hot days for children to play in and decorated
with small wicker furniture and small statues of fawns and squirrels. Edith animated this
garden with Fan-tailed Doves in four small dovecotes and a larger one on top of the summer
house, designed by Edith’s daughter, Lady Margaret and built by the builder, Thomas
Beattie of Newtownards in 1923.
Tir n’an Og
Fig. 30 Tir n’an Og © Alan Power
The family burial ground, Tir n’an Og translates from Scots Gaelic into ‘The Land of the Ever
Young’. Built on a south facing slope on the opposite side of the Lake from the rest of the
Formal Garden, the three turrets glimpsed above the trees and shrubs has the air of a fairytale. Approached by a network of sloping steps, the turrets and masonry retaining wall
between is decorated with small reliefs of heraldic motifs by the sculptor Morris Harding. A
yew hedge encloses the burial ground to east, west and north, but around the east and west
gates are stone arches also decorated by Harding. The beautiful gates are from a local
blacksmith, Godfrey Walker. The reverse of these arches house two alcoves decorated with
tesserae of light blue. Three of the four alcoves house statues designed by the artist and
family friend Edmund Brock. St. Patrick and St. Bridget are housed at the western end and
St. Columcille stands alone on the eastern side. These are inscribed in Scots Gaelic. A third
entrance to the burial ground is through a tall, two storied stone gate built in Twelfth
Century Romanesque style. The wide stone arch houses a double gate made of Oak and the
upper chamber has three windows giving a panoramic view of the garden and beyond to
Strangford Lough and Slieve Donard. There is an Oak bench bearing Edith’s monogram and
above it in red sandstone and engraved slab with a poem to the garden. To the west side is
a small fireplace.
Fig. 31 Tir n’an Og © Lady Rose Lauritzen
The centrepiece of the burial ground is fine font on a carved columnar support. Small pools
lined in the same blue tesserae as the alcoves surround the font and the arrangement of the
paths and paved surfaces resemble that of a Celtic cross. On either side of these pools and
arranged radially on either side of the large gate arch, are two finely carved sarcophagi.
These are the work of Morris Harding, who worked with Rosamund Praeger in Holywood in
the 1930s. The western sarcophagus belongs to Lord Londonderry, who died in 1949. Lord
Londonderry’s tomb is the more weathered
of the pair and the tall sides depict on the
foot of the sarcophagus the badge of the
Royal Air Force, Lord Londonderry served as
Under Minister for Air in Ramsey McDonald’s
Labour government. Lady Londonderry’s is
perhaps the more personal of the two,
depicting her beloved books, her pets and
her garden amongst her honours and arms.
Eastward, next to Lady Londonderry lies her
beloved youngest daughter, Lady Mairi, who
died in 2009.
There is a strong link to the Shamrock Garden
with The White Stag and the Formorians. In
the eastern turret at Tir n’an Og is a relief by
Margaret Wrightson depicting Ethlinn, the
daughter of the king of the Formorians, Balor
Fig. 32 Tir n’an Og © National Trust
of the Evil Eye, holding the baby Lugh, the Celtic Sun God. Wrightson’s design is based on a
design for a tarot card, first published by Maude Gonne McBride in her book ‘Cow of
Plenty’, published in 1910. The only difference is Lugh is holding a cross. There are very fine
reliefs by Morris Harding and the Twelve Apostles are depicted in a higher sequence of
reliefs. The western turret has two of its three windows housing fine wrought iron frames
and exquisite stained glass.
Fig. 33 The White Stag
© National Trust