The gardener’s garden

Since Margery Fish first made a garden at East Lambrook in Somerset it has firmly remained in the cottage garden style

How Margery Fish’s legacy at East Lambrook is maintained by the garden’s new owners

Nestling on the edge of a small hamlet in Somerset is the 15th-century East Lambrook Manor, made famous by the prominent gardener Margery Fish. She gardened at East Lambrook from 1938- 69 and championed the cottage garden style through her many articles and books. Among her works is the well-known We Made a Garden – her account of building the garden from scratch alongside her husband, Walter, and the struggles they encountered.

Mrs Fish created the f lower garden using a similar style (though on a smaller scale) to that found at Hidcote, Sissinghurst and Gravetye Manor. She wished it to be, in her words, ‘as modest and unpretentious as the house, a cottage garden, in fact, with crooked paths and unexpected corners’. The manor house is unassuming, yet charming, and built from the local sandstone, hamstone, as are the malthouse and attached cowshed at the centre of the garden. Hamstone is quarried from the nearby Ham Hill. It is also used throughout the garden in the walls, while blue lias (another local stone) is used for paving the paths, and as f looring in the house. Such continuity creates a bond between house and garden.

The rectangular site is gently undulating, with the manor house anchored in the southeast corner. The house leads to the Terrace Garden, comprising a series of raised hamstone island beds and interlinking paths that meander up a slope. It is said that Mrs Fish originally marked out the terrace pattern in fresh snow. Intersecting the terrace is a wider path f lanked with pudding trees (tightly clipped Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Fletcheri’), which leads to themed gardens at the top of the slope, including the Silver Garden, White Garden and Top Lawn. The layout is restrained and humble, with the garden f lowing around the malthouse and divided into areas known as The Strip, The Ditch and the Wooded Helleborus Garden.

Margery Fish is renowned for her informal, naturalistic, cottage garden style of planting. The garden at East Lambrook is overf lowing with plants; they occupy every niche, on the walls and in the cracks of paving. Self-sowers are encouraged, and carefully chosen wildf lowers are given garden room. The garden achieves year-round height and structure through carefully positioned woody plants. These bones of the garden lend substance, particularly during winter and early spring when the bulk of the planting is dormant. On the terrace, centre stage with its distorted foliage, is evergreen Prunus laurocerasus ‘Camelliifolia’ – a plant so uncommon even the most proficient plantaholic might struggle to identify it. Euonymus fortunei ‘Silver Queen’, with attractive, variegated foliage, provides contrast to the softer herbaceous perennials. The pudding trees are one of the few formal features in the garden, but are also good counterpoints to the mead-like mixture of f lowers in the borders. Larger trees stationed around the perimeter as well as in the lawns help enclose the garden, shielding it from surrounding properties.

Self-sowers are prevalent throughout the garden and are a key feature of the naturalistic atmosphere as they break up the man-made planting with their wandering habits. Nectaroscordum siculum, aquilegia hybrids and Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus are among these summer volunteers. Snowdrops and scilla perform similar roles in spring by scattering themselves here and there, often in between perennials that will supersede them

THE GARDEN AT EAST LAMBROOK IS OVERFLOWING WITH PLANTS; THEY OCCUPY EVERY NICHE, ON THE WALLS AND IN THE CRACKS OF PAVING

later in the year. Much like the blue lias and hamstone, self-seeding plants, such as the Welsh poppy and native red campion, serve to link different areas of the garden together.

Mrs Fish was very skilled not only at assembling displays, but also at creating combinations to occupy different seasons. Many areas of the garden mimic the ecology of a woodland: great swathes of spring bulbs in The Ditch are followed by a summer canopy of f lowering herbaceous perennials. Such succession gardening creates a long period of interest. The show begins in spring with a display of snowdrops and continues unabated into autumn.

Mrs Fish was a novice who came to gardening in her forties. It’s a remarkable achievement that she was able to create such a significant, settled garden from scratch in the 30 years she spent at East Lambrook, and it continues to thrive and exhibit her style even today. During this chapter of her life, she became an avid plantswoman and acquired significant collections of geraniums and snowdrops, some of which bear her name. Her relaxed style of gardening catered for her love of collecting plants, and she could add new discoveries to the borders without disrupting the ‘grand scheme’ of an overly formal design. She introduced many new cultivars discovered as seedlings in the garden; the long list includes Polemonium ‘Lambrook Mauve’, Artemisia absinthium ‘Lambrook Silver’ and Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii ‘Lambrook Gold’.

After Mrs Fish died in 1969, the garden remained in the family for nearly 20 years. It has since been through various owners, all of whom have maintained East Lambrook in the cottage garden style. This continuity is largely thanks to head gardener Mark Stainer, who has worked in the garden for more than 40 years, and whose passion and love for the place is obvious.

Mike and Gail Werkmeister now own East Lambrook Manor, and together with Mark aim to ensure the legacy of this iconic garden. There is always tension between nostalgia and progress, but they seem to have found the right balance. On the subject of changes, Mike says that the Wooded Helleborus Garden, recently revitalised by Mark, is now one of his favourite areas. “Sometimes changes are forced upon the garden,” he continues, lamenting a lovely specimen of Rhus potaninii felled in a storm, and honey fungus has also taken its fair share of victims. But these losses are an opportunity for the Werkmeisters to put their own stamp on the garden, and undoubtedly they will continue the legacy that began 80 years ago with Margery Fish.

USEFUL INFORMATION

Address East Lambrook Manor Gardens, Silver Street, East Lambrook, Somerset TA13 5HH. Tel 01460 240328. Website eastlambrook.com Open 1 February – 31 October, Tuesday – Saturday (plus Sundays May – July and Bank Holiday Mondays), 10am-5pm. Open for the National Garden Scheme on 13 May and 2 June. Admission £6.