Mottisfont stands bold, then follow along to the priory’s cellarium and coffee strong, view a Mappa Mottisfont defining the hours and lands from the priory’s 1340 flourishing to the black death and decline. Across the sward a stone arched summer house, fit for assignations, is dwarfed below majestic trees. Boxed trees with much clipping to define, formal edging, hedging and a lime walk recalling columned cloisters, formality with urns and mown lawn give way to rewilding tinged red and shades of sage.
For better view mount the steps where Geoffrey Jellico was bid to create a simpler octagon, then turn to view two saucer magnolias frame the statue with white opulence beyond. Oh to be in England now that June is here The stable block beckons with a wire tacked up horse for the Rev Barker-Mill to go hunting in 1836. But do not stop as a purple haze awaits, a majestic beech stands tall and proud from where a sculptural snowdrop fantasy hangs its head in deference.
Beyond the rose garden is home to the national collection of pre-1900 shrub roses, visiting a week later, much had changed since our previous visit on 10th June 2019, when rain had refreshed all the plants. Then covid came with one gardener: some raised beds have disappeared, a change in planting schemes and gardening practice, in part to counteract global warming. Although roses are no longer dead headed, as left for rose hips, still colours deep and rich, shock or amaze including the velvet of Louis XIV.
On my last visit Charles de Mills was looking and scenting gloriously, now there was little of either but Assemblage des Beautes was making a show, at its feet iris, pinks and snog in the fog! Much of the planting rambles through the roses with drifts of geraniums white and blue and pockets of interesting colour, shape and tonal combinations. Bird song persists amongst the breezy trees muting sounds of traffic.
In the corner of the kitchen garden Rosa Blossom Time was climbing the wall behind a charming stall with different varieties of lavender to see and scent, but no longer beds of trial roses and the gardener’s cottage museum closed, where I met Henri Martin, bumble bees busy in rugosa roses and bears of stone rear on entrance columns.
Time was limited so the winter garden was missed for a fleeting interior visit, long corridors, the acclaimed Whistlers decorated room and I could have run off with the silver!
‘Well behaved women seldom make history’.
Photos and text by Sarah Herring