There aren’t many in the gardening world who’ve not heard of Munstead Wood, the former home of gardening icon Gertrude Jekyll VMH (1843 – 1932). As a place largely off the garden visiting trail, it’s more than a little charged with mystery and intrigue. It was something of a treat then to be given the opportunity recently to visit, and I couldn’t help but put pen to paper to record my experience.

After a warm welcome and much discussion, I stepped from some worn flagstone steps beside the house to explore the garden. Venturing across the soft moss-filled lawn I turned about, looking carefully to really understand the place, and began to see that it wasn’t indeed all about the garden.

Cut into the hillside terrace before me was a large and quietly confident local stone house, rooted as firmly as the trees all around. It was a long handsome building of simple lines and shapes which brought control to the predominantly leafy scene; it was the Lutyens architectural masterpiece I’d looked forward to seeing.

The house was longer than tall, an aspect emphasised by parallel runs of white edged leaded windows nestled in silvery oak frames. Up above though, a pair of tall chimney stacks contrasted, adding bold vertical strokes for balance. The structure for me

had a medieval feel being almost barn-like, and it seemed as though it had been there forever, as in colour and form it looked as natural as the wood in which it lived. Though of its time, it was calm, quality, understated and undeniably perfect for the place.

Encircling the grassy oasis where the house lived, aged woody stems rose high above large dark Rhodo’ clouds. Also there were beech, oak and sweet chestnut trees in sufficient numbers to dim the light, although birch cleverly lifted the scene, its near-white stems catching the sun and echoing the nearby chimney stacks. There wasn’t so much a distinction between house, garden and wood, but fusion.

Cruising around absorbing the details I had time enough to stop and study, and everywhere I looked the importance of this place as a working garden grew stronger. There were long established plants you’d recognise and love, and newer plants placed diligently by the committed gardener who payed reverence to Gertrude. There were mature and neatly trimmed shrubs, somewhat unexpected topiary forms, and solid stone garden walls where yet more plants were allowed to ramble and scramble. In this relatively compact garden that had been carefully restored, there was a great deal going on.

Everywhere I looked there were plants, they were even growing out of the tall and perfectly formed chimney stacks, although maybe that wasn’t quite intentioned. In fact, it was quite a theme, that of plants growing in the cracks, and I also spotted them lodged between artfully placed stones set on edge, in carefully created poolside pockets and billowing from narrow borders hugging the house itself. Every site and situation with restraint had been used to grow, and very little seemed out of place.

If ever a garden could be said to possess spirit, then this garden would be it. I know, it is relatively easy to create these things in the mind when time is taken to focus, but there at Munstead, it was present from the moment I first stepped onto the gravel. Maybe it’s because the garden is still worked actively, or that few people were there on the day of my visit, I just couldn’t tell, but whatever it was, it was almost tangible in every single space.

I could happily have spent days there trying to understand its secrets and lessons, delving into its past and present and absorbing its ambience. Ornamental borders blended with lawns and trees, formal paths effortlessly delivered me deeper into the wood, but also welcomed me to the house with reliable shapes and cool colours. Even allowing for ageing tree canopies that will always threaten with their shady tops, so clever was the layout of the garden with mass and space that good light reached all the places in need; the garden was in no way a happy accident.

To sit for just a while though was a must, and not just to pause and look around but to listen; an especially appropriate activity as the day I happened to be there was World Listening Day. As often the way, as soon as I’d set upon finding a seat one appeared, and like the garden an ordinary seat it was not.

Just a few steps off a freshly worked earthen path and almost hidden from sight was a seat recessed into a yew hedge. It was located on a modestly raised platform of river-worn stones, and with a sprinkling of dry leaves, looked to have been slightly forgotten in the big scheme of things. A hart’s tongue fern softened one corner and in the other, a stinking iris seedling was getting away, so I perched awkwardly somewhere in between. Immediately, I could see the reason for its creation, being to offer a view along and through the full length of Gertrude’s main herbaceous border. To say I was impressed doesn’t begin to come close.

There were many pleasant surprises at Munstead, a garden I never thought I would visit, and now some time has passed I feel better able to reflect and be rational. At the time I was captivated by the ambience; a characterful house and graceful working garden with a very special plant collection, in the beautiful Surrey Hills. Further to this, being so closely linked to Jekyll and Lutyens who were leading lights of their time, and with my fascination with heritage gardens, architecture and design, my visit was always going to involve special moments as I would naturally look to pick up on their influence.

Now though I can be objective and put aside all spiritual connotations. I can say that Munstead is simply a place where two talented designers and a host of craftspeople came together to create a place with character, and purpose. In its heyday it was clearly a practical, needs-driven place where Gertrude could practice her crafts, garden for experiment and profit, write and entertain and so much more. But Munstead was also a home, a place where she could relax and be alone or with those she trusted, and as such I’m captivated by how she chose to grow trees so close to the house, and how naturally relaxed the whole place feels.

My hope for the future of Munstead Wood is that in time, you too can spend a moment or two there to understand its design and formation, to hear birch leaves shake in the breeze, or to touch the grains on the aged oak garden doors. I’d hope for you to also have time to move through those soft mossy paths, to admire the classic forms and textures of the whole place, and, if you’re just a little like me, to pass on your respects to the spirit of the place.

Gary Webb. July 2023

More info: Munstead Wood ~ Gertrude Jekyll