The Walled Gardens at Harleyford

Celebrating its 250th birthday in 2005, the majestic manor house at Harleyford is at least the second to have graced this magnificent riverside setting. The Estate itself dates back to Norman times, the name possibly being derived from its proximity to Hurley and the access thereto – Hurley-ford.

It is likely that the first manor house proper was not built until around 1540, by Tucher Bold, who obtained a licence for his own priest to practise in the house, on account of its excessive distance from the parish church. That building must have had plenty of timber in its construction, because it was severely damaged by fire in 1582 and then, having survived a further century and a half unscathed, was destroyed by a further blaze in the early 1750s.

With the Estate now in the hands of the Clayton family, who nurtured it until it passed to Archie Folley in 1951, it was Sir William Clayton who commissioned architect Sir Robert Taylor to build the house that survives to this day – thanks in no small part to the endeavours of Archie Folley's heirs who restored the dilapidated villa to its former glory during the 1980s.

Royalty, nobility and politicians from here and abroad were frequent visitors to the Estate, where entertainment would have been lavish during the 18th and 19th centuries. Local produce would have been required in abundance to stock the menus and no fewer than three walled gardens were constructed on the fertile soil close to the Thames to provide an abundant supply of fresh fruit and vegetables.

The gardens were included in the plans for the house and were laid out soon after the main building had been constructed in 1754/5. This is evident from the mixture of bricks used in the extensive walls. Since there were no heavy goods road vehicles in those days to transport building materials, bricks needed to build the new Manor House were made in specially created brickworks close to nearby Marlow town.

Mechanisation and mass production were unknown, so there were large number of rejects – broken, misshapen or discoloured – and it was these bricks that found their way into the kitchen garden walls.

Re-discovered during the recent painstaking restoration work, a well was sunk to ensure adequate irrigation for the flowers and produce and those solid brick walls provided protection against the ravages of icy winds and allowed such sun-loving fruits as peaches and figs to be grown. Vines clung to the brickwork and in good summers would have provided the raw material for a good few bottles of 'Harleyford' wine.

It is not certain how the roles of the three kitchen gardens were divided, but it is likely that fruit, vegetables and flowers, the last to decorate the house and possibly to be transplanted elsewhere in the pleasure grounds, were the three component parts of a considerable output. It was a symbol of status to have fresh flowers in country mansions, especially during the winter months of the 18th and 19th centuries, when there was no question of jetting them in from overseas, and greenhouses were certainly installed at some stage in order to allow produce to be grown more quickly and out of season.

A further aid to unseasonal growth was provided by cold frames, which were raised above the ground and ingeniously warmed by heat generated in decomposing manure placed beneath.

The gardens played a major role in the self-sufficiency of the Estate, which had its own water supply and sewerage system and, with the coming of electricity, its own generator. There was also an ice house, which stands to this day nestling in the cool of the hillside.

The head gardener's cottage also remains, resplendent with its distinctive turret. This is thought to have been connected to the function of the boiler house which lay beneath the cottage. With other garden buildings which have now gone, this would have been built at the same time as the house.

In Victorian times, it was the then Lady Clayton, Gertrude, who decided that the walled gardens should be a place of enjoyment, while still providing produce for the table. In her recollection of the times she writes: 'Till 1890, the walled kitchen garden was purely useful and not ornamental. We then had a very good gardener named Sharpe, who was with us for 22 years, and with his help we gradually changed the garden very much. I had hedges to conceal the vegetables and made wide herbaceous borders of which I was very proud.

'I also made the rose garden. When the flowers were all at their best, in June, we had an annual strawberry party in the garden, with tea, strawberries and cream and so on at little tables under the trees. We were about 30 or 40 people and the garden was very much admired.'

This was clearly the walled gardens' heyday. Such was their attractiveness that they featured heavily in a pictorial article published about Harleyford in a Country Life magazine issue of June 1910. The monochrome nature of the photographs does not do justice to what was evidently a glorious floral display, but the delightful style and the secluded peace of the enclosures shine through.

Sir William ('Rowlie') Clayton died in 1914, but his wife, Gertrude, inherited the Estate and continued to live there until her own death in 1932. Sadly, by this time the Estate was debt-ridden and the gardens, along with the house and much of the fabric of Harleyford had entered a period of slow decline.

By the time that Archie Folley purchased the Estate from the Clayton family, the gardens had ceased to have any useful purpose. The house itself was almost derelict, so there was no longer a need for home-grown produce in any quantity.

Fortunately, Mr Folley and his descendants, have considered it their duty to preserve as much of the Harleyford heritage as is practicable, while taking full advantage of the sylvan setting to generate an income to make this possible.

The house and many other Estate buildings have been almost entirely re-built and the garden walls have now also been restored so that they can now provide a perfect location for an exclusive of development Garden Cottages.