Shute House, Donhead St Mary,

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

, England is a former

rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...

, now a private home, notable for its gardens designed by

Geoffrey Jellicoe Sir Geoffrey Alan Jellicoe (8 October 1900 – 17 July 1996) was an English architect, town planner, landscape architect, garden designer, landscape and garden historian, lecturer and author. His strongest interest was in landscape and gar ...

. About east of

Shaftesbury Shaftesbury () is a town and civil parish in Dorset, England. It is on the A30 road, west of Salisbury, Wiltshire, Salisbury and north-northeast of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester, near the border with Wiltshire. It is the only significant hi ...

, the house and garden are at the very southern edge of Wiltshire, on the border with

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

. The house is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

, while the gardens have a higher Grade II* listing on

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...

Register of Historic Parks and Gardens #REDIRECT Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England #REDIRECT Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England {{R from move ...

{{R from move ...

History

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

Renamed Shute House in 1955, it was designated a Grade II listed building in 1966. In 1968, the house was bought by

Lady Anne Tree Lady Anne Evelyn Beatrice Tree (; 6 November 1927 – 9 August 2010) was a British philanthropist, prison visitor, and prisoner rights activist. In 1995 she founded the charity Fine Cell Work, which gives prisoners the opportunity to do worthwh ...

, and her husband, Michael. Lady Anne, a sister of the 11th Duke of Devonshire, was a noted prison reformer and her husband, Michael, was the son of

Nancy Lancaster Nancy Lancaster (10 September 1897 – 19 August 1994) was a 20th-century tastemaker and the owner of Colefax & Fowler, an influential British decorating firm that codified what is known as the English country house look. Biography She wa ...

, the interior designer. They had earlier lived at

Mereworth Castle Mereworth Castle is a grade I listed Palladian country house in Mereworth, Kent, England. This source attributes the plasterwork to Francesco Bagutti, but Giovanni Bagutti would appear to be more likely. History Originally the site of a fort ...

in Kent, and had a connection to Geoffrey Jellicoe though work he had undertaken for Nancy and Ronald Tree at Ditchley Park in the 1930s. By the time of his work at Shute House, Jellicoe had become one of England's most successful landscape gardeners. Training originally as an architect, he moved into landscape gardening in the 1930s, helping to establish the Institute of Landscape Architects and becoming the founding president of the International Federation of Landscape Architects. During a 60-year career, he designed a series of major gardens, both in the United Kingdom and worldwide. He also made a significant contribution to

landscape gardening A landscape is the visible features of an area of Terrestrial ecoregion, land, its landforms, and how they integrate with Nature, natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Diction ...

theory; exploring, in particular, links between design and the

subconscious In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness. The term was already popularized in the early 20th century in areas ranging from psychology, religion and spirituality. The concept was heavily popu ...

, in which he was much influenced by the ideas of

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of Carl Jung publications, over 20 books, illustrator, and corr ...

, and the use of water in design. The joint work Jellicoe wrote with his wife, Susan Pares, ''Water: The Use of Water in Landscape Architecture'', was published while he was engaged at Shute.

Gardens

The Trees commissioned Jellicoe to build a series of gardens around the house, which he undertook between 1969 and 1983. The result is reputed to have been Jellicoe's favourite design, and is considered by many horticulturalists to be his finest work. In the 1990s, the house was bought by Sir John and Lady Suzy Lewis, who persuaded Jellicoe to come out of retirement to undertake a restoration of the gardens which had deteriorated. The gardens at Shute focus on water. A natural spring, a source of the

River Nadder The River Nadder is a tributary of the River Avon, Hampshire, River Avon, flowing in south Wiltshire, England. Course The river flows north from Ludwell, Wiltshire, Ludwell to West End where it is joined by the Ferne Brook, close to the Lower Co ...

, is divided into two channels. One is naturalistic, the other a straight, formal

rill In hillslope geomorphology, a rill is a shallow channel (no more than a few inches/centimeters deep) cut into soil by the erosive action of flowing surface water. Similar but smaller incised channels are known as microrills; larger incised ...

in which the water flows over a series of

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

ledges, designed to create

musical notes In music, notes are distinct and isolatable sounds that act as the most basic building blocks for nearly all of music. This discretization facilitates performance, comprehension, and analysis. Notes may be visually communicated by writing them in ...

. The bubble fountains at the top of the rill are gravity-operated, and were inspired by examples Jellicoe saw in

Kashmir Kashmir ( or ) is the Northwestern Indian subcontinent, northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term ''Kashmir'' denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir P ...

. The two channels reunite in a

bog garden A bog garden is a type of garden that employs permanently moist (but not waterlogged) soil to create a habitat for plants and creatures which thrive in such conditions. It may exploit existing poor drainage in the garden, or it may be artificial ...

at the end of the landscape. Jellicoe designed twin

grottoes Grottoes may refer to: *The plural form of Grotto (disambiguation) * Grottoes, Virginia, a town named for the nearby cave system Grand Caverns {{Disambig ...

, influenced by

William Kent William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, b ...

, which flank the channels. Other elements in the garden include reconstructed fish ponds, a canal, a lily pool and a

camellia ''Camellia'' (pronounced or ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in tropical and subtropical areas in East Asia, eastern and South Asia, southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are ...

walk. Sculptural components include statuary, bridges and an

exedra An exedra (: exedras or exedrae) is a semicircular architecture, architectural recess or platform, sometimes crowned by a semi-dome, and either set into a building's façade or free-standing. The original Greek word ''ἐξέδρα'' ('a seat ou ...

. The gardens at Shute House were given Grade II* listed status on 18 August 2020. The listing followed a three-year collaboration between Historic England and the Gardens Trust to raise awareness and appreciation of important English gardens designed in the

post-war A post-war or postwar period is the interval immediately following the end of a war. The term usually refers to a varying period of time after World War II, which ended in 1945. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum, ...

period. The gardens are open for group visits by prior appointment.

Footnotes

References

Sources

* * {{cite book , last = Spens , first = Michael , title = The Complete Landscape Designs and Gardens of Geoffrey Jellicoe , url = https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/928039933 , year = 1994 , publisher =

Thames & Hudson Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...

, location = London , isbn = 978-0-500-01596-4 , oclc = 928039933

External links

BBC programme about Shute House Gardens

Illustrated article on Shute House Gardens from ''Home & Garden'' magazine

Country houses in Wiltshire Grade II listed buildings in Wiltshire Grade II* listed parks and gardens in Wiltshire Grade II listed houses Gardens by Geoffrey Jellicoe