St. Paul's Walden Bury is an
English country house
image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...
and surrounding gardens in the village of
St Paul's Walden in
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...
. The house is a Grade II* listed, and the gardens Grade I.
A home of the
Bowes-Lyon
The Bowes-Lyon family descends from George Bowes of Gibside and Streatlam Castle ''(1701–1760)'', a County Durham landowner and politician, through John Bowes, 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, chief of the Clan Lyon. Following the marr ...
family, it is possibly the site of the birth of
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was List of British royal consorts, Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of K ...
.
The garden
wilderness
Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plurale tantum, plural) are Earth, Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human impact on the environment, human activity, or any urbanization, nonurbanized land not u ...
, or highly formalized woodland, is a very rare survival, and the "most perfect surviving" English example. It was laid out in the 1730s with straight walks in the old formal style, when these were already becoming rather unfashionable.
The house, of red brick with stone dressings and slate roofs, was built around the 1730s for Edward Gilbert (1680–1762). His daughter Mary married
George Bowes of
Gibside
Gibside is an estate in Tyne and Wear, North East England. It is located in the valley of the River Derwent, North East England, River Derwent on the border with County Durham, between Rowlands Gill and Burnopfield. The estate is the surviving pa ...
, Durham, and the estate has been in the possession of the Bowes or Bowes-Lyon family since 1720.
made alterations to the house in the 1770s,
which was also extended to the rear in the late nineteenth century.
Gardens
The St Paul's Walden Bury gardens' design is largely contemporary with the house, with additional 19th and 20th-century
woodland garden
A woodland garden is a garden or section of a garden that includes large trees and is laid out so as to appear as more or less natural woodland, though it is often actually an artificial creation. Typically it includes plantings of flowering shrub ...
areas.
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 ...
(1900–1996), the landscape designer, restored and "improved" the 18th-century work. There are three straight grassed
allée
In landscaping, an avenue (from the French), alameda (from the Portuguese and Spanish), or allée (from the French), is a straight path or road with a line of trees or large shrubs running along each side, which is used, as its Latin source ' ...
s radiating in ''
patte d'oie'' ("goose foot") formation from the garden front of the house. The garden is notable for one of the best surviving formal
wildernesses. Each allée is flanked by clipped beech hedges.
[ In the 1950s a circular temple designed by ]James Wyatt
James Wyatt (3 August 1746 – 4 September 1813) was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the Neoclassicism, neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to ...
was rescued and brought here from Copped Hall
Copped Hall, also known as Copt Hall or Copthall, is a mid-18th-century English country house close to Waltham Abbey, Essex, which has been undergoing restoration since 1999. Today, Copped Hall refers to the upstanding house, while Copt Hal ...
, Essex, when that house burned down.[Clark, Robert]
''Wilderness and Shrubbery in Austen’s Works''
Section 5, ''Persuasions On-line'', The Jane Austen Society of America, Volume 36, No. 1 — Winter 2015 There are a number of other garden buildings and statues, some 18th-century, and an 18th-century walled kitchen garden
The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...
, nearly square and divided in two parts by a further wall.[
In 1987 the gardens were designated Grade I on the .][
]
References
External links
St Paul's Walden Bury – Official website
St. Paul's Walden Bury entry from The DiCamillo Companion to British & Irish Country Houses
{{Coord , 51, 52, 52, N, 0, 16, 34, W, display=title
Houses in Hertfordshire
Grade II* listed buildings in Hertfordshire
Grade II* listed houses
Gardens in Hertfordshire
Grade I listed parks and gardens in Hertfordshire
Gardens by Geoffrey Jellicoe
Woodland gardens