Penelope Hobhouse MBE (born 20 November 1929), née Chichester-Clark, is a British garden writer, designer, lecturer and television presenter.

Early life

Born into an

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

family in

Moyola Park Moyola Park is a country estate near Castledawson, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is currently the home of Lady Moyola, widow of Lord Moyola, former Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. The estate is and is home to Moyola Park Go ...

Castledawson Castledawson is a village in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is mostly within the townland of Shanemullagh (, IPA: �anˠˈʃanˠˌwʊl̪ˠəx, about four miles from the north-western shore of Lough Neagh, and near the market town of ...

, she is the daughter of

James Lenox-Conyngham Chichester-Clark James Jackson Lenox-Conyngham Chichester-Clark (September 1884 – 31 January 1933) was a Member of Parliament of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland for South Londonderry from 1929 until his death; his mother-in-law was elected to replace h ...

and Marion Caroline Dehra Chichester (1904-1976). She is also the sister of Lord Moyola, the

Prime Minister of Northern Ireland The prime minister of Northern Ireland was the head of the Government of Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. No such office was provided for in the Government of Ireland Act 1920; however, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, as with governo ...

from 1969 to 1971, and Sir Robin Chichester-Clark. Debrett's entry She was educated at

North Foreland Lodge (To do good and be happy) , established = 1909 , closed = 2003 , type = Independent , religious_affiliation = Church of England , president = , head_label = , head = , r_head_label = , r_head ...

and

Girton College, Cambridge Girton College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1948, it was granted full college statu ...

, graduating with a BA in economics in 1951.

Career

Hobhouse walked through

Tuscany it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Citizenship , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = Italian , demogra ...

and taught herself gardening by examples of the Tuscan villa gardens she saw; she went on to be a garden writer and designer, publishing many books on the subject. She started work at Hadspen House, Somerset until leaving in 1979. In 1980 she and her husband Prof John Malins moved into

Tintinhull Garden Tintinhull Garden, located in Tintinhull, near Yeovil in the English county of Somerset, is a small (less than an acre) 20th century garden surrounding a 17th-century Grade I listed house. The property is in the ownership of the National Trust. ...

s. The garden's former designer Phyllis Reiss was said to have had a strong influence of Hobhouse. Until 1993 she was in charge of Tintinhull House's gardens also in

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lor ...

. In 1996 she hosted a television series for

Home & Garden Television HGTV (an initialism for Home & Garden Television) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The network primarily broadcasts reality programming related to home improvement and real estate. As of February 2015, appr ...

in the USA. Her publications include; ''Colour in Your Garden'', ''Plants in Garden History,'' ''Penelope Hobhouse on Gardening', ''Penelope Hobhouse's Garden Designs'', and ''Penelope Hobhouse's Natural Planting''. Hobhouse is "a fixture in the minds of gardeners who love ''rooms'' and ''bones'' – the paths and walls and satisfying verticals that form the skeleton of a garden." She has designed gardens in England, Scotland, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the United States. They include a garden for

Elizabeth the Queen Mother Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was the l ...

, at Walmer Castle in Kent, 'The Country Garden' for the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nor ...

at Wisley, a renaissance-style garden in Italy, the Upper Walled Garden at Aberglasney, in Carmarthenshire, a herb garden for the

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

, and a garden for the fashion designer, Jil Sander, in Germany. In 1996, she designed an

English cottage garden The cottage garden is a distinct style that uses informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental and edible plants. English in origin, it depends on grace and charm rather than grandeur and formal structure. Ho ...

for

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...

' Woodside home, a perfect fit for

Tudor-style Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architectur ...

architecture. She is an associate editor of ''Gardens Illustrated'' magazine. She has taught at the University of Essex. She then lived in

Bettiscombe Bettiscombe is a small village and civil parish in west Dorset, England, situated in the Marshwood Vale west of Beaminster. Dorset County Council's 2013 mid-year estimate of the population of the civil parish is 50. History The parish church, ...

, Dorset until 2008. She then moved in September 2008 back to Hadspen, where she started a new garden outside her quarters which are in the yard. Her new garden is a south facing and enclosure at the back of some converted stables surrounded by mature box hedging. This may be a challenge as her Bettiscombe garden was a good deal warmer than this one.

Family

Hobhouse married firstly, 17 May 1952 Paul Rodbard Hobhouse (d 1994), son of Sir Arthur Hobhouse (d 1965), of

Castle Cary Castle Cary () is a market town and civil parish in south Somerset, England, north west of Wincanton and south of Shepton Mallet, at the foot of Lodge Hill and on the River Cary, a tributary of the Parrett. History The word Cary derives fr ...

, Somerset; this marriage was dissolved in 1983, and she left the garden she had restored at the Hobhouse seat, Hadspen, Somerset. They had one daughter, Georgina Catherine, and two sons, Niall Alexander and David Paul. She moved to Tintinhull and met her second husband, John Melville Malins, at a Garden History Society meeting; they married in 1983, he died in 1992.

Awards

* Award of Excellence for her book, ''Gardening Through the Ages'' from the ''Garden Writers Association of America'' in 1993 *

Victoria Medal of Honour, the highest award given by the RHS to British Horticulturists in December 1996.Julia Brittain * ''Life Time Achievement Award'' from the ''Guild of Garden Writers'' in November 1999 * Honorary degree from

Birmingham University , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

* ''Lifetime Achievement Award'' from the Society of Garden Designers in January 2020. She was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to British gardening. A variety of '' Oenothera'' was named after her, called Oenothera 'Penelope Hobhouse'.

Selected works

References

External links

penelopehobhouse.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hobhouse, Penelope 1929 births Living people People from County Londonderry People educated at North Foreland Lodge Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge English gardeners Penelope Members of the Order of the British Empire Victoria Medal of Honour (Horticulture) recipients