The Gardens of Montacute House

The Garden

The house was built in around 1598 by Sir Edward Phelips, a powerful lawyer and politician who was later involved in the trial of Guy Fawkes. It is constructed of the warm, honey-coloured Ham stone which has been quarried locally since Roman times. At first sight, the front of the house seems like a wall of glass interlaced with elaborately carved niches and sculptures; the roof gracefully covered in curved gables and topped by slender chimneys, while heraldic beasts stare down from the parapets.

The house was a fitting tribute to Sir Edward’s wealth and status, but in the centuries following his death the family fell on hard times and the house became neglected and its furniture sold off. In the early nineteenth century, Edwin Phelips obtained material from a house nearby called Clifton Maybeck and used it to rebuild Montacute’s west façade but then the money ran out again and Montacute’s future looked uncertain. Fortunately, in 1929 Ernest Cook, grandson of the founder of the travel company, bought the house and presented it to the National Trust, where it became one of their first large houses. At this point the house was almost an empty shell, but loving restoration and careful furnishing by the National Trust have brought it back to life once more.

Interestingly, however little money they had to keep the house in order, Montacute’s owners have always fought to preserve and improve the gardens. There had already been some improvements but the turning point came in the mid-nineteenth century, when William Phelips married the heiress of Coker Court, Ellen Halgar, and she brought her gardener to Montacute. She began a process of redesign and improvement which has carried on through the years; in the twentieth century, Vita Sackville-West, one of England’s most famous gardeners, was brought in as an advisor, and the summerhouse on the cedar lawn has seats designed by the influential architect, Edwin Lutyens.

Today, the gardens at Montacute offer the visitor everything from sweeping landscaped gardens and rare trees to stunning formal flowerbeds. The east court opens onto the original avenue to the house, which is flanked by huge lime trees added in the seventeenth century. It was replanted in the 1950’s to a scheme devised by Mrs Phyllis Reiss of nearby Tintinhull House. A mixture of herbs and shrubbery brighten the borders throughout the year, while clematis and vines decorate the walls on either side of the garden and highlights include plume poppies, yuccas and purple leaved barberries. A particularly grand Magnolia grandiflora can be seen at the corner of the house.

At the end of the garden near the house is a large rose bed which was suggested by Vita Sackville-West. It has many colourful and aromatic traditional roses, many of which were in cultivation when the house was built. These include Rosa gallica officinalus, (the red rose of Lancaster), its ‘sport’ Rosa gallica ‘Versicolor’ (Rosa mundi) and the double white form of the Yorkist rose, Rosa alba ‘Maxima’. Oriental roses are well represented by the Chinese Rosa moyesii and several forms of Japanese Rosa rugosa, as well as Rosa pimpenellifolia lutea, a yellow hybrid of the Burnet rose.

Small kitchen gardens exist along the eastern walls bordering the cedar lawn but a yew hedge hides the ‘Servants Walkway’ – designed so that those enjoying the lawn wouldn’t have their view spoilt by the servants. At the southern most end of the cedar lawn is a small, semi-circular garden and water feature adorned with a row of small columns. This feature, built in 1964, is the newest addition to the garden.

Jane Austen fans will recognise Montacute as the home of the Palmer family in the 1996 film version of “Sense and Sensibility”. Scenes were shot both internally and externally, and film buffs will be interested to spot locations. Particularly striking is the tall hedge of Irish yew, deformed long ago by frost and maintained ever since in its twisted form, which was used as an appropriate backdrop for an emotionally traumatic scene for Marianne, played by Kate Winslet. Keen-eyed visitors will also recognise the cedar lawn, as the backdrop to the scene where Colonel Brandon (played by Alan Rickman) is seen rescuing Marianne in the thunderstorm.