HESTERCOMBE HOUSE

AND GARDENS
- Edwin Lutyens

Kaduuuuuuuu Vaidya
  HESTERCOMBE HOUSE is
surrounded by gardens which
have been restored to Gertrude
Jekyll’s original plans (1904 -07)
and have made it “one of the best
Jekyll-Lutyens gardens.
.

INTRODUCTION  Hestercombe House is located

between West Monkton and
Cheddon Fitzpaine in the Taunton
Deane area in the south of the
English county of Somerset. It is
on the Quantock Hills which were
England's first Area of
Outstanding Natural Beauty being
designated in 1956. The south
facing gardens offer views of the
Blackdown Hills.
 It is mix of three historic gardens,
Hestercombe is the happy result of a
collaboration by Sir Edwin Lutyens and
Gertrude Jekyll who created a formal
Edwardian garden in the larger landscape of
a 40-acre Georgian landscape garden.
 With woodland walks, classical temple,
waterfalls, and breathtaking views across
the Vale of Taunton.
 Resulting in a garden it is "remarkable for
the bold, concise pattern of its layout, and
for the minute attention to detail
everywhere to be seen in the variety and
imaginative handling of contrasting
materials, whether cobble, tile, flint, or
thinly coursed local stone".[33
One area of the new garden
was the Great Plat, combining
a formal parterre with hardy
herbaceous plants. The Great
Plat is set between raised
terraces with water channels
made of brick.
Great plat
PLAN

Another striking There is a large

feature is the Dutch garden at the
Orangery, designed east end of the site,
by Lutyens and with intermingled
listed Grade I for its perennials such as
historic value. China Rose,
fuchsia, and dwarf
Orangery Dutch garden lavender.
One of the urns in the Daisy steps that link Gate from one part of Finial on an entrance
Dutch garden. the landscape and the garden to another. post.
formal gardens.
• The listing text for the gardens describes the pergola
above as a structure with alternate massive circular and
square-section piers extending 80m from east to west,
which supports a slightly arched timber superstructure
constructed from oak beams.

• The gardens stretch to 40 acres and cover three distinct

areas; the formal Edwardian area near the house, the
Victorian terrace and shrubbery, and the Georgian
landscape garden. Exploring Hestercombe is like
walking through a timeline of garden history.
thank you