Chalk Pit to Paradise
Highdown Gardens explored by Susan Buchanan
PERCHED on a hill on the South Downs near Worthing in West Sussex are the Grade II listed Highdown Gardens. While people might come to climb nearby Highdown Hill to admire the views, which stretch from the Isle of Wight in the west to Beachy Head in the east, some then discover the entrance to this hidden gem. Open to all (except dogs) and free of charge, the gardens were bequeathed to the local council by Sir Frederick and Lady Sybil Stern in 1967.
The garden is full of undulating paths and flights of steps. Around every curve is a new aspect and a new surprise: colourful and shapely flower-beds, grand trees, ponds and a sloping grass area where Shakespeare’s plays are performed in the open air in summer. It is a vibrant celebration of nature with a wide variety of flowers, shrubs and trees.
Highdown comes into its own in spring, with an array of bulbs and wonderful large beds of peonies and bearded iris. Amongst the countless individual plants and trees there is a large hellebore bank, a paperbark maple, bought from Veitch’s sale (a forerunner to the Chelsea Flower Show) in 1912, a Judas tree, and a strawberry tree – growing back after being badly damaged in the 1987 storm. The garden also boasts Rosa “Highdownensis”, cultivated by Lord Stern, as well as many other species in the rose garden, and a magnificent “weeping” Chinese hornbeam, planted in 1937 by Queen Mary. A Millennium Garden was developed in 2000 and is a peaceful area with a water feature and grasses.
To visit is like walking around the garden of a grand house, which of course, it was originally. Highdown is distinctive, though, acknowledged as a place of national and international importance due to its collection of rare chalk-tolerant plants. It has won Silver and Gold awards from South East in Bloom. It has received the Green Flag Award (a nationwide scheme for parks and gardens) for the last 13 years for providing high horticultural standards within an environmentally friendly garden. TripAdvisor has also given it a Certificate of Excellence for the past five years.
In 2015 a group of volunteers was established (including myself) by Highdown Gardens in conjunction with History People UK, a heritage consultancy, and the Worthing Heritage Alliance, to research the history of the Sterns, the gardens and its plants, as part of an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund.
An award of £1million was granted, resulting in substantial changes in the last year which can be enjoyed when the gardens reopen this spring. There’s an impressive new visitor centre, telling the fascinating story of the gardens, and a new sensory garden has been established with easy access for wheelchair users. The existing greenhouse has been refurbished and a new greenhouse built to protect delicate plants. A blue plaque in memory of Sir Frederick and Lady Stern is now at the gardens as part of Worthing’s heritage trail.
Saving the exotic plants at Highdown has also been a major part of the project and Stern’s handwritten index cards, which identify the many exotic plants that grow in the chalky soil, have now been digitised. Several rare specimens have been discovered. Indeed, seeds from one impressive specimen have been sent to a special bank to help preserve the species, and specialists from Kew Gardens have trained some of us volunteers in the collection and propagation of plants.
Frederick Stern moved into Highdown Towers in 1909. It was then a large, private house built around 1850. He began to design and plant his garden, but it was not until 10 years later, when he married Sybil, daughter of portrait painter Sir Arthur Lucas, that the gardens surrounding the old chalk quarry began to take shape. Sir Frederick, in his book A Chalk Garden, describes what he found when he first arrived:
“There was no garden except two small lawns on each side of the house, and large oaks, a grass paddock and a belt of beech trees protecting a large chalk pit from the south and southwest winds, which was used no doubt in former days to obtain chalk to lime the surrounding fields.”
After a false start they decided to use the pit to, “grow flowering shrubs and other plants.” The problem was, however, that nobody could give them advice on what they could grow on this “nearly virgin chalk”. According to Sir Frederick, “One eminent nurseryman . . . said nothing would grow there.” Fortunately, he had encouragement from others, who suggested that planting in the chalky soil should be treated as an experiment to discover what plants, if any, would thrive. Stern sought the help of specialist collectors, such as Reginald Farrer and Ernest Wilson, who sent him specimens from around the world, chiefly China and the Himalayas, many of which thrived in the alkaline chalk soil at Highdown.
Stern discovered that those plants placed directly in the hard chalk only thrived for a short time before becoming pot-bound and dying, whereas those planted in the chalk rubble did well, as their roots found their way through. Thus it was decided that the ground should be broken up between 2 to 2½ feet deep, giving roots the space to grow and spread. To begin with lilacs, junipers and other shrubs were planted in the chalk rubble, and as these did well, more planting took place.
Other features were added and Sir Frederick describes how a concealed lime kiln was used:
“It was obvious that this should be made a feature of the garden so the wall around it was covered with Horsham stone to make it look like a cave, and a cement-lined pond was made in front of it with the water going into the cave.” They then built a rock garden around the pond, and, because it was facing north, built another rock garden at the bottom of the cliff which faced south. There was a small pond at the lowest part of the cliff, which was prone to drying up in the summer, and this was also cemented so that water-lilies could grow in both ponds.
From then on, the chalk pit was gradually planted with small areas established every year, each section prepared by breaking up the subsoil whilst keeping to the natural lie of the land. The Sterns received plants from gardening friends, as well as expeditions, and had to extend the garden to accommodate them. Sir Frederick worked closely with a team of dedicated, long-serving gardeners.
The couple worked for 50 years on their garden, establishing which plants could grow on chalk. They also learned that trees and shrubs grew better if planted when small and were surprised by the plants on the chalk cliff. As Lord Stern pointed out:
“It is not possible to water the plants on the cliff, and in a hot summer both cliff and the rock garden below become very hot indeed, but the plants growing here have never been watered and have never suffered from drought. It would seem that water from the Downs above must percolate through the cliff. The chalk holds the moisture rather like a sponge. If you dig down a spit and pick up a piece of chalk you will find it quite moist even in the hottest summer.”
Clearly, it was quite a task to find plants around the world happy to grow
on lime, and they had to rely on the plant collectors who travelled the globe to collect rare and attractive species, some of which Stern bought and which still thrive in the garden today. In 1912, Stern bought plants collected in China by E.H. Wilson from a sale at the nursery of James Veitch. Stern wrote:
“These Chinese plants were so different from plants cultivated in gardens at that time that they were a challenge to any inquiring gardener to see if he could grow and flower them, to see if they were going to be worthy of a place in the garden, and in our case to see if they would tolerate our chalk conditions.”
He was delighted to find that they grew well, and Stern supported further expeditions, including in 1920 to eastern Asia by great plant collectors such as Reginald Farrer and Francis Kingdon-Ward. Other expeditions went to Chile, Greece and Asia Minor, as well as the Himalayan regions. The plant collectors of the “Golden Age” suffered extreme discomfort and danger. Kingdon-Ward had many accidents, including being impaled on a bamboo spike, falling off a cliff, being lost with no food, having his tent destroyed by a falling tree in a storm, and being caught up in an earthquake registering 9.6 on the Richter scale.
Sir Frederick came from a wealthy banking family and was a student at Eton and Oxford. As a youth, he was a big game hunter and successful amateur jockey. He served with the London Yeomanry (Westminster Dragoons) during World War I and saw action in Gallipoli and Palestine, rising to the rank of Colonel. He was twice mentioned in despatches and received the Military Cross in 1917.
In World War II he commanded the Worthing Home Guard and went on to be Group Commander of the West Sussex Home Guard. In 1919 he served as private secretary to Lloyd George at the Versailles Peace Conference and had hoped to be an MP for the Liberal Party in Parliament.
Stern received his knighthood in 1956 for services to horticulture and served as vice-president of the RHS. He died in 1967 aged 83, and his obituary describes the qualities which made him such a great gardener:
“Chief among them would be the youthful enthusiasm which he retained all his life. He was among the kindest and most generous of gardeners. The youthful visitor to Highdown, provided he was keen, would go away laden with treasures. He was anxious to spread his good plants around, not only in this country but in America and elsewhere, where he had a host of horticultural and botanical congresses.”
Sybil, after marrying Frederick in 1919, devoted her time to the gardens and was an avid supporter of the National Gardens Scheme. For 33 years she was a magistrate for Worthing. The couple regularly opened the gardens to the public and bequeathed the house and gardens
“for the enjoyment of local people and visitors in perpetuity”. With a new lease of life, Highdown Gardens can now continue to bring pleasure to its many visitors from both near and far. Highdown Gardens, 33 Highdown Rise, Goring-by-Sea, BN12 6FB. highdowngardens.co.uk