Columbine Hall
Set in 34 acres, Columbine Hall is described in Eric Sandon’s Suffolk Houses: “Surrounded by rich green meadows and old trees, there is much that suggests an imparkment of the 15th Century, and within this a moated manor house which, in slowly declining from its former status, has preserved an atmosphere of indefinable timelessness”.
The medieval house, which rises directly from the waters of a wide moat, stands on a one-acre island on which a formal garden was designed by the Chelsea gold medallist, George Carter, in 1993. High hornbeam and yew hedges divide the area into separate lawn spaces with eight formal flower beds and a herb garden. Vistas across the moat embrace the parkland and distant views of the countryside beyond.
Outside the moated area, the mood is natural and understated. Cow parsley is allowed to run riot on the moat banks, and there is a bog garden with a stream and waterfall, a series of ponds and orchards. A grassy walk through woodland “completes itself,” in the words of Catherine Howard, writing in Essential Suffolk, “with the Moat Walk and the house seen from its really knockout side, reflected upside down even on an overcast day.”
One of the highlights is the formal vegetable garden adjoining an 18th Century timber-framed barn. It was created on the site of a partially demolished modern farm building whose brick walls were left standing to enclose a walled garden.
A new walled flower garden has recently been created and new bridge built across the moat.
Benton End House and Garden
Benton End house and gardens in Hadleigh, Suffolk is the former home of celebrated artist and gardener Sir Cedric Morris (1889 – 1982) and his lifelong partner, artist Arthur Lett-Haines (1894–1978). The Garden Museum is now restoring and reviving Benton End as a new centre of art and horticulture.
Cedric and Lett established the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing creating one of the most remarkable art schools of the period, a place ‘outside the system‘. One of the first pupils was the 17-year old Lucian Freud; one of the last, Maggi Hambling. The artists were often joined by friends such as Elizabeth David, Vita Sackville-West, Constance Spry, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears.
Benton End re-opens Cedric Morris’s walled garden following a £200,000 project led by James Horner, Head Gardener, in collaboration with landscape designer Sarah Price and landscaper Mark Whyman. Be amongst the first visitors to see the renewed garden – landscaped and planted in the spirit of Cedric Morris and featuring many of his beloved plants such as irises, poppies and the 140-year-old Medlar tree. Hear the story of the re-built garden from the gardeners who’ve worked alongside the landscape team. Learn about the next steps for Benton End and our plans for the future.
