HORTUS: Arts and Crafts in the Cotswolds

We begin at midday at Kemble Station, near Cirencester (see Joining Arrangements overleaf ) and start the tour with a private visit to Rodmarton Manor, where we are invited to lunch by John and Sarah Biddulph. Rodmarton was built for John’s great-grandparents, newly-weds Claud and Margaret Biddulph, from 1909 to 1929 by Ernest Barnsley, and survives as a remarkably intact example of the Arts & Crafts movement. Lunch in the manor’s dining room is followed by a short illustrated presentation by Marion Mako, who takes a profound interest in Cots- wolds Arts & Crafts. After a tour of the house and garden we travel on to the nearby idyllic village of Sapperton to view the garden at Upper Dorval House, where architect-craftsman Ernest Barnsley once lived. He and his brother Sidney (and fellow A&C associate Ernest Gimson) are all buried in the adjacent church- yard. We then drive to our hotel, with time to settle in before dining together, with wine included.

The whole of this day is devoted to the artistic community which settled in the beautiful village of Broadway. Under the expert guidance of Marion Mako we visit a number of private gardens, starting at Russell House with its delightfully- planted garden and eighteenth-century follies. Here, in 1886, John Singer Sargent finished his famous painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. We then cross the road to Luggers Hall, former home of the painter and little-known garden designer Alfred Parsons (1847–1920). After lunching together in Broadway we move to Springfield House, former home of the Blomfield family, a scion of which was the architect and writer Sir Reginald, to whom certain garden features can be attributed. The well-planted garden is beautifully maintained by its present owner Karen Bloch, who has invited us for afternoon tea. We then return to our hotel where we dine together.

Owlpen Manor, private home of the Mander family, is a Tudor house with a rich and imposing history. After a period of neglect in the nineteenth century it was bought in 1925 and ‘rescued’ by architect Norman Jewson. Beautifully situated, its ‘Old-English’-style garden was much admired by Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville-West. Our visit includes a private viewing of the house with its wonderful collection of Arts & Crafts furniture and fittings, and a delicious lunch prepared for us by Lady Mander in Owlpen’s fifteenth-century Cyder House Restaurant. In the afternoon we visit the garden at Miserden in the Golden Valley, where Sir Edwin Lutyens designed the terraced gardens, making full use of superlative far-reaching views beyond a long mixed herbaceous border brimming with colour. Tea and cake will be served in the converted glasshouse at the excellent adjoining plant nursery. Return to Lords of the Manor Hotel where, again, we dine together.

For our final morning we head into the historic market town of Chipping Campden, where the Guild of Handicraft made its home in 1902, the story of which is portrayed in the town’s Court Barn Museum. A visit to the museum is followed by a guided walk along the High Street to see its numerous Arts & Crafts buildings. After some free time for lunch we make our way to Cotswold Farm, home of the Birchall family, for a rare opportunity to view this private house and garden. The house was extended in the Arts & Crafts style in 1926 by architect Sidney Barnsley and his assistant Norman Jewson, who also laid out the adjacent gardens with its yew terraces. After tea the coach returns to Kemble station for a late-afternoon train to Paddington, and then returns to Lords of the Manor for those guests who have left their cars at the hotel.