The Italian Garden, Great Ambrook

The following is from the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. For the most up-to-date Register entry, please visit the The National Heritage List for England (NHLE):

www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list

The Italian Garden at Great Ambrook, laid out between 1909 and 1912 by T H Lyon for Arthur Graham.

Location, Area, Boundaries, Landform and Setting

Great Ambrook lies to the south-west of Ipplepen, and is surrounded by undulating agricultural land. The garden covers an irregularly-shaped area of approximately 4 acres, sloping upwards to the east away from Great Ambrook House, from which it is separated by the house drive, running from north-east to south-west. Standing to the north-east of the house is the converted coach-house. On a plot to the south-west of the garden is a late-C20 house, Abbot's Croft. The garden is bounded on the north, east and south-east sides by rendered walls: those to the north and east reach up to 15 feet high, and are wired for plants on both sides; the south-eastern wall is lower, allowing views into the field beyond. The southern boundary is edged by post and wire and the south-western boundary by post and rail, both sections having been put in place after the 1950s. Defining the north-west corner of the garden is a walled orchard, pre-dating the Italian Garden, its south-east wall having been lost in the 1960s. To north, south and east the garden is bounded by fields.

Entrances and Approaches

The original main entrance to the garden is at the west end of the site, with wide stone steps leading up from the former carriage drive; the steps are flanked by large stone troughs. The carriage drive originally curved south and then north-east into the garden from the main drive to Great Ambrook House, and ran along the north-west side of the garden; the south loop of the carriage drive was cut off when the plot on which Abbot's Croft is built was created. A modern entrance here, at the junction between the truncated carriage drive and the main drive, is the one now most frequently in use. A wide gateway at the north-west corner of the garden, having circular gate piers with scalloped capitals, and double timber gates, provided access to the carriage drive which is believed to have run along the north side of the garden wall to the summerhouse at the north-east end of the garden. Here, an archway gives pedestrian access to the garden. Near the east end of the garden is an opening in the wall, approached from within the garden by the Palm Walk; replacement timber gates open to give a view of the field, known as the Peacock Field.

Principle Building

Great Ambrook House, listed at Grade II (National Heritage List entry 1164677) is a largely C18 house on the site of a medieval manor, with a C17 rear wing. A substantial music room addition was built in 1909-12 by T H Lyon, in neo-Georgian style, with an attached terrace defined by Doric columns. The house is not included in the registration, because the garden occupies a clearly defined area, representing a designed landscape created within a short period of time, but the relationship between house and garden remains legible.

Gardens and Pleasure Grounds

The layout of the garden is fluid and cohesive, the naturally sloping site being divided by a number of walkways leading between a variety of features and vistas. The overall conception is in the picturesque tradition, rather than forming a series of compartments in the style more usually associated with Arts and Crafts gardens. The paths form a unifying feature throughout the garden, being constructed of irregularly shaped or 'crazy' paving in Portland stone, with rills running alongside them; the sound of running water would have added a further sensory dimension to the garden.

The NORTH WALK follows the line of the north wall from the carriage gateway to the north end of the eastern terrace; the CENTRE WALK begins at the original main entrance, and moves upwards through the centre of the garden, passing to the south of the DELL, to the terrace; the SOUTH WALK, which defines the south-east edge of the garden, leads from the terrace, towards the recreational areas in the south-west part of the garden.

The garden contains numerous trees planted in the early C20, and now mature, including western red cedar (Thuja plicata), Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) Chusan palms (Trachycarpus fortunei), maidenhair trees (Ginkgo biloba), Monterey cypresses (Cupressus macrocarpa), Lawson's cypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana), Nootka cypress (Xanthocyparis nootkatensis), yew (Taxus baccata), holm oak (Quercus ilex), London planes (Platanus x acerifolia) and a Magnolia acuminata.

At the eastern end of the garden, the three main walks converge on the semi-circular TERRACE, 33 feet in diameter, which marks the garden's summit; beneath the terrace is the spring-fed water tank which feeds the complex water system, served by the rills edging the paths, and by a number of large stone-built reservoirs. At the centre of the terrace is a plinth, made of Portland stone and sandstone, which formerly held a sundial. Set against the north-east wall is the south-west-facing SUMMERHOUSE. This is a two-storey building, square on plan, with a storage area below and a single room, the floor of which is laid with terracotta tiles, above, reached by an external stair rising diagonally across the frontage.

Beneath the stair, to right, is a small loggia. The north wall of the building has an octagonal window at ground-floor level. The summerhouse originally had an ogival domed roof, now lost. The arched gateway in the garden wall to the north of the summerhouse leads into an enclosure in the adjacent field, in which are planted a holm oak and a cork oak. Set into an angle in the outer face of the north garden wall, a small colonnaded SHELTER provides views towards Dartmoor and Haytor. To the south of the terrace, on the outer face of the garden wall, lies a disused HOTHOUSE which formerly contained a grapevine, and retains the original boiler and pipework.

The lower, south-western part of the garden is dominated by the tennis court (converted from lawn to hard court in the 1930s). At the court's southern end, the stone-built TENNIS PAVILION, which consists of a viewing terrace raised on columns, accessed by a wide central stair. At the centre of the terrace, with its square-pierced balustrade, is an octagonal plunge pool. At the back of the terrace, a curved seat of grey Ipplepen marble, with scrolled pedestals and arm-rests. Benched seating is built around the sunken areas beneath the terrace.

Leading south-east from the tennis pavilion, the grassed Apostles Walk, lined with western red cedar and holly, leads past the small ROSE GARDEN, with rectangular beds set into stone paving, to the SWIMMING POOL. This feature consists of a rectangular pool, narrow but deep, constructed of brick with concrete-rendered sides and a terracotta-tiled base, edged by a low wall suitable for seating, and surrounded on three sides by roughly-hewn pillars of Dartmoor granite, which originally held wooden beams and trusses, forming a pergola. To the south side of the pool, shallow steps lead down to the SUNBATHING AREA, with a stone bench at the south-west end.

One section of the South Walk is covered by a PERGOLA, 111 feet long, formed of concrete-rendered brick columns with tall squared bases, and planted with Akebia quinata and Vitis cognetiae, both of which appear in photographs of the garden in its early days. At the centre of the pergola, the PALM WALK (lined with Trachycarpus fortunei) leads from the Centre Walk, and ends at the gateway to the Peacock Field, from which there is a view of an area of ornamental tree planting, thought to be contemporaneous with the garden, and a 'borrowed view' of the landscape with a copse pre-dating Graham's work at Great Ambrook. Here is planted a Camellia japonica 'Alba Plena', thought to be original to the garden.

At the east end of the South Walk, a group of five Podocarpus salignus. To the north of the South Walk, between the swimming pool and the Palm Walk, is the area now known as THE SQUARE, planted with mature specimen trees, including Corsican pines (Pinus nigra subsp. laricio), a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and a Rocky Mountain Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), as well as a wild cherry, which at 26 metres was recently (2014) designated Devon champion by the Devon Gardens Trust.

Reasons for Designation

The Italian Garden at Great Ambrook is registered at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Design: for the unusual design of the garden, reflecting the early-C20 fashion for Italian style in gardens, but taking a more informal, picturesque approach suited to the Devon landscape within which it is set;

* Designer: as the only surviving garden created by T H Lyon, a local architect with a more far-reaching role as first Director of the Cambridge School of Architecture, whose eclectic tastes are well represented in the garden design;

* Garden structures: the garden includes a number of buildings and structures of unusual design, which form an integral part of the layout and experience of the site;

* Survival and Documentation: despite decades of neglect, the garden remains remarkably close to its original design, as evidenced by contemporary documents and photographs;

* Planting: a number of mature trees and plants survive from the original planting scheme;

* Historic interest: for the socio-historical context in which the garden was produced, being commissioned, designed, and written about by men linked by homosexuality as well as by aesthetic interests;

* Group value: with Grade II-listed Great Ambrook House, to which Lyon added a music room extension contemporaneous with the garden.

Selected Sources

Other Reference - Description: Photographs, plans and other papers in private hands.