Kiftsgate Court, perched on the northern edge of the Cotswolds
Hills in Gloucestershire, is a garden composed of many different
scenes. Some elements - the bluebell wood, the clipped hedging and
the rose border, with its famously huge Kiftsgate rose - are
traditionally English, but there are also areas of Italianate
planting and terracing, and others where a mixture of perennials,
roses and rare and exotic shrubs thrive side by side. Equally
remarkable is the fine balance between continuity and gentle
evolution that the visitor finds at Kiftsgate. This is largely
because the garden has belonged to the same family since its
creation 100 years ago. Three women have tended Kiftsgate, each one
its driving force for a third of a century, and each building on
the legacy of the previous generation. In 1919 Heather Muir and her
husband, Jack, bought the house, which stands on a relatively
narrow plateau from which a bank plunges 100 feet. Heather gave
Kiftsgate its structure, laying out the semi-formal gardens by the
house, planting the tapestry hedge and rose garden, and terracing
the banks. In 1954 Heather was succeeded by her daughter, Diany
Binny, who extended and developed her mother's planting, made more
borders and paths, and refashioned the White Sunk Garden. Since the
late 1980s Diany's daughter, Anne Chambers, has been at the helm,
further modernizing the garden and its planting, creating new areas
of interest, and opening more often to the public. As Robin Lane
Fox, who has written the foreword, comments: `There is nowhere else
in Britain that has such a family tradition of planting and
dedication ... It is intimate but many-sided, evolving but with
roots in a remarkable past.' This beautiful new book - the first
dedicated to Kiftsgate - is structured in two main parts. For the
first, `The History', Vanessa Berridge has had exclusive access to
the Kiftsgate archive, which contains not only family photographs
but also letters from their gardening friends, helping us to
understand why and how Heather, Diany and Anne have gardened. Among
the circle of friends and acquaintances who feature are Lawrence
Johnston of Hidcote Manor (Kiftsgate's neighbour); Vita
Sackville-West, the creator of Sissinghurst Castle Garden; and the
horticulturalist Graham Stuart Thomas, gardens adviser to the
National Trust. The second part of the book takes the reader on an
extended tour of the garden, illustrated by the glorious
photography of Sabina Ruber. The tour concludes with notes on
Kiftsgate's signature plants and Anne Chambers's personal
reflections on this, one of the great gardens of England.
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