‘He was American born but he became a naturalized British citizen soon after arriving at Hidcote,’ said Kingston. His name was Lawrence Johnston. Of all things, he was a career military man. Got to the rank of major, eventually. He and his well-heeled mother, Mrs Winthrop—she was twice widowed actually, one husband was a wealthy banker, I believe—arrived at Hidcote in 1907. Johnson was thirty-six at the time. It was an inhospitable piece of land. The three hundred acres of mostly windswept fields were awkwardly sloping and not at all suited to the cultivation of a garden. Plus, neither had any experience in gardening.’
Jamie smiled. ‘Sounds a bit like me.’
Kingston returned the smile. ‘You didn’t tell me about those two husbands!’
‘I will, one day,’ she replied.
‘So where was I? Oh, yes. Someone once commented that “with their peripatetic lifestyle, it seems unlikely that the two of them had ever stayed anywhere long enough to see a tree grow.” I thought that was a clever line.’ He paused. ‘But Lawrence Johnston was set on making a garden. In the seven years leading up to World War I, he worked tirelessly, planning and planting the beginnings of his garden. At the start of hostilities, he went off to the wars again—I forgot to mention, he had fought earlier in the Boer War. He was an officer in the Northumberland Fusiliers. Quite a hero, too—he was wounded twice, and once nearly buried alive.’
‘Good Lord! It’s a wonder he found any time for gardening. ’
‘I know, but it was in the years to follow that Hidcote really took shape, when he left the army. After the war, he came back to Hidcote and spent the next thirty-four years expanding and nurturing the gardens to their present glory: twenty-eight separate gardens within gardens spread over ten acres. In his later years, he turned the gardens and the house over to the National Trust.’
‘Sounds like he was what we call an “A” personality type.’
Kingston shook his head. ‘On the contrary. He was not at all what one might expect. He was shy and modest and shunned publicity. But he had impeccable taste and over the years participated in several plant-hunting expeditions in various parts of the world. Several plants are named after him and the garden, the most famous, of course, being Hidcote lavender. It seemed he had very little interest in anything other than his garden.’
‘When did the National Trust take over?’
‘In the late forties. They’ve maintained it superbly ever since. He died in 1958 in Menton, France, where he had created another garden, Serre de la Madonne. He’s buried in a village churchyard a few miles from here, beside his mother.’
‘What an amazing story. They should make a film about it.’
‘You know, Jamie, Hidcote is a little like Wickersham in one respect.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘In the forty-plus years that Johnston gardened at Hidcote, he left no diaries, few letters and wrote no articles about his extraordinary creation. No plans of work in progress or finished designs, and no plant lists have ever surfaced.’
Leaving the courtyard, they walked through a narrow blue-painted door into the Old Garden. Circled by old rosy brick walls the garden was a profusion of blue, white, pink and mauve from the exuberant plantings in five jam-packed long beds. Kingston pointed out campanulas, Cambridge Blue iris, hardy geraniums, anchusa, astrantia major and white philadelphus, as they ambled the grass and gravel paths that circled the garden.
Next they entered the White Garden, a small symmetrical enclosure bounded by box hedging with stylized topiary birds. Here, all the plants were either grey or white. On to the Maple Garden with its feathery mounds of Acer palma-tum, Japanese maple, and stepping-stones set in gravel that led past a sunken stream with wands of Solomon’s seal and lush clumps of skunk cabbage.
During the course of the next three hours, Kingston led Jamie through Hidcote’s breathtaking wonderland: the long and deep red borders crammed with spiky cordyline, crimson canna, cherry trees and dazzling oriental poppies; the magnificent and spacious Theatre Lawn with its formal clipped yew hedging and towering old beech tree; the Long Walk, a wide swath of mown grass flanked on either side by tall boxy hornbeam hedges leading to a wrought-iron gate through which they could see only sky and the farmlands beyond.
They lingered in the serene Pool Garden with its large circular pool and central fountain surrounded by more cleverly clipped yew hedges and the large yew Palladian portico atop a flight of semicircular steps leading to a grassy roundel at the back. On to the formal Pillar Garden and the Stilt Garden where the intertwining branches of facing rows of hornbeam trees were clipped into overhead box shapes. Closing in on the three-hour mark they also managed to cover the magnificent Rose Borders, the Pine Garden with its rectangular lily pond, floods of agapanthus and spiny agaves, the Fuchsia Garden, the Poppy Garden, the Stream Garden, the Kitchen Garden and the Terrace Garden.