The pleasure of being involved with garden surveys is to be able to explore a beautiful garden, often with its owner, and have time to appreciate the care and thought that has gone into it. One of the most attractive I have seen in the last few years is at Chisenbury. Mr John Manser gave us a quick tour before he had to go off to a business meeting. He claimed that it was easy to look after; just a matter of "letting things grow". The result is certainly a triumph of controlled laissez-faire.

Chisenbury Priory is an ancient site. The present house dates from the 17th century, with a brick front added in the mid-18th century. There must have been an earlier building, perhaps going back to the grant of the manor to the abbey of Bee in Normandy, in 1112. This accounts for the name 'Priory' or 'Priors', though the connection with Bee was severed during the Hundred Years War with France. In 1441 the manor was granted to the Hospital of St Katharine by the Tower, which remained Lord of the Manor into the 20th century.

Successive generations of the Maton family leased the manor up to 1587, when it passed to a son-in-law, Matthew Grove. The Groves, later Chafin Groves, continued as lessees until 1891. It is apparent from Kelly's Directories that they in turn must have sub-leased the house. In 1848 the occupant was William Maton, farmer. The next Directory held by the Record Office is for 1875, when the occupant was John Stagg Cusse. He was still there in 1880, but in 1889 the occupant is given as Robert Jenner, farmer. He was still there in 1915 and from 1907 onwards described himself as 'farmer & land owner'. There is no mention of Chisenbury Priory in 1920, so it may have been empty. In 1923 the occupant is given as Major Francis Vivian Lister O.B.E., A.I.C.E.

He had bought it in 1922 from Messrs Phillips, Dixon and Mason, whom the Victoria County History records as having bought from St Katharine's Hospital the remainder of the estate in 1921 (308 acres having already in 1913 been sold to the War Department). He embarked on a thorough restoration of the house (the architect was Walter Rudman of Chippenham) and must also have set about making the garden An article by Cosima Armytage in WGT Newsletter No 19 (Spring 1989) mentions that in 1922 he had a plan made of the gardens. It would be interesting to see this. The Victoria County History says that Major Lister not only repaired the clunch and flint walls that surround the area north-west of the house, but also added the formal entrance gates with brick piers to the forecourt. The 1924 Ordnance Survey (probably surveyed two years earlier) shows the forecourt with its U-shaped drive, and with mixed trees on the east side (evidently grown from the shrubbery on the 1900 survey). Behind the house was a hedge running off diagonally, parallel to the boundary wall. In 1900 this had been closed at the north by a hedge, but by 1924 this had been removed, opening the area to the rest of the grounds.

It was evidently Major Lister who got rid of the farm which occupied a site to the south of the house, as shown on the Tithe Map of 1844 and on the Ordnance Survey of 1900. (A photograph of about 1910 shows an attractive collection of thatched farm buildings and a number of staddle stones.) Some of its buildings had already gone by the Ordnance Survey of 1924, also recorded on an aerial photograph of 1925. Another aerial photograph thought to date rom about 1927-1929 (taken by O.G.S. Crawford, head of the archaeological section of the Ordnance Survey, many of whose glass plates and all his records were lost in the London blitz) shows a closely planted orchard (?) to the west of the house and, in the field further west, a pond and a tennis court. It appears to have been in 1935 that a new owner, Col. Oliver Hawkshaw took over at Chisenbury. The 1939 Ordnance Survey shows that by then the farm had completely disappeared This map shows some other changes: a hedge encloses an area west of the outbuilding and the west wall of the forecourt and an orchard had been planted between this and the mill leat. The drive that approaches the house from the south had been planted to form an avenue; it was now given a straight outlet to the road. Col. Hawkshaw is reputed to have been a keen gardener, but we do not know more about his garden. It appears that the main private garden was behind the house, shaded by the 12ft high yew hedge, just as it was before the First World War, when a photograph of about 1910 shows a family, presumably the Jenners, having tea in its shade.

Col. Hawkshaw had five daughters. One of them, Ruth, married the relatively impecunious Maj. H. Morton Fisher and on them he bestowed the estate. An aerial photograph taken in July 1945 shows a hedge extending from the south-west corner of the house to enclose a formal garden bounded on the north side by one of the old walls. There are also signs of planting along the wall on the further side of the leat, and espalier fruit trees parallel to the wall bordering the road. Behind the house the big yew hedge that hardly allowed one to see out of the windows was still there, but had been removed by the time another aerial photograph was taken in April 1951. All this must have been the work of Mrs Morton Fisher, known to have been an enthusiastic gardener despite having lost a leg due to an infection of athlete's foot.

She probably put up the long greenhouse west of the outbuilding; it lasted until the Robbs' time; during which it blew down, was propped up again, and finally disappeared in 1993.

In 1964 Sir Richard and Lady Harvey bought Chisenbury Priory. They (but the credit is given to Lady Harvey) set about transforming the garden: the course of the leat was moved to form a gentle curve, widening at its south end, allowing for a large lawn sloping down to its bank from a low retaining wall curving round the upper part. Steps up through the retaining wall led to a paved path, turning at the east wall to run south to the Justice Room courtyard at the back of the house. These changes would have involved a considerable amount of earth moving, but seem not to have disturbed the trees which stood near the original south end of the leat The widened part of the leat was overhung by a weeping willow, and the banks were planted with roses (Nevada and Marguerite Hilling). Cosima Armytage in WGTNewsletter No 19 (Spring 1989), adds that "one of her great achievements was to line with brick the banks of the leet... enabling the edges to be planted with moisture-loving plants." An aerial photograph taken in September 1971 also shows what seems to be an extensive cuttings (?) garden in place of the orchard south-west of the house, west of the greenhouse. John Sales, in West Country Gardens (1980), notes the roses, clematis and herbaceous perennials bordering the forecourt, then goes on to the two small enclosed gardens west of the house: "One, near the garden room, where tea is served, is mainly paved and dominated by a large circular bed of old-fashioned border flowers. A crab apple, a purple Cotinus coggyria and a Mexican Orange complement a rose-covered wall to shelter this corner. In contrast to this floweriness, the other little garden is a formal arrangement of cool and restful greens which relies on the contrasting shapes of Plantain Lilies, Veratrum nigrum, Solomon's Seal, Rue and various grasses." He continues: "Further west the arboretum has tempting mown walks through lush long grass past big flowering shrubs to a lily pond, and on to the neat kitchen garden." He then returns to the area north-west of the house: "Here the garden is terraced down to the north-west from the house lawn, where the planting is simple with groups of cherries and a large juniper (probably planted by Mrs Morton Fisher), to a stream (the leat) where most of the horticultural excitement is concentrated. The stream, which emerges mysteriously from among enormous old clipped yews, has been skilfully manipulated by Lady Harvey and her gardener to form a pool where a weeping willow makes a feature. The stream has two pretty stone bridges and sides planted with a rich variety of vigorous watersiders, Bugbanes, Day Lilies, the creamy plumes of Aruncus dioicus and the fiery giant 'montbretia', Curtonus paniculatus, now Crocosmia, interspersed with Weeping Cherry, quince and Buddleia alternifolia" He concludes with an enthusiastic description of the glorious array of roses, near the stream, climbing over walls and into old apple trees, and old shrub roses mixed among espalier apples and pears with clematis in delicious confusion.

A serious fire in the house in December 1981 forced Lady Harvey, by now a widow, to move out, and in 1982 the estate was bought by Alastair and Mary Anne Robb. In a Garden Survey in 1987 Daphne Butler noted the three walnut trees producing walnuts the size of chicken's eggs which had been identified by the Henry Doubleday Institute as a variety unique to Chisenbury. Cosima Armytage, in WGTNewsletter No 19 (1989), wrote that the Robbs "set about the huge task of putting the house back together, and improving the garden. Changes have to be made and often to the garden's advantage... The Robbs set about the garden with a 5 year plan, a lot of which has already been achieved. The two big borders at the front of the house have been replanted with large groups of herbaceous plants to give colour for the summer months. Roses and clematis, and a huge Akebia quinata (probably planted by Lady Harvey) covers the walls..." An article by George Plumptre in Country Life for 20 May 1993 describes Mrs Robb as a keen plantsman and collector, who has gathered plants either herself or from plant-collecting friends, including Martyn Rix and Jamie Compton. She was particularly indebted to Dr. Compton, formerly head gardener of Chelsea Physic Garden, and his wife Lady Tania, a garden designer, who redesigned the main borders that flank the entrance courtyard with an arrangement of perennials and shrubs in shades of blue, purple, yellow and white. The article goes on to describe the small enclosed area to the west of the forecourt with mixed planting of honeysuckles intertwining with rose Buff Beauty, behind Piptanthus laburnifolius and Clerodendrum trichotomum, and with Jasminum stephanense climbing up to the roof of the house. The article continues with a description of the lush planting of the Stone Garden, the part enclosed by walls and a hedge immediately west of the garden room. Buddleias, Philadelphus , alchemilla , astrantias and tradescantias surrounded a circular pool (Mrs Robb paid her 14 year old son to make this from the circular flower bed!). To the south of this there was a formal area, with half-hardy plants growing in gravel around a lawn with Aralia data variegata as its centrepiece. The west field is described as a meadow garden with spring bulbs. In the corner the old carp pond had been cleared of silt and its edges planted with primulas. The wall along the north-east side of the meadow was overhung by Philadelphus and climbing roses. Through the lower gate in the wall one could see a strip of lawn (the Bowling Alley) and a row of old apple trees, underplanted with blue and white Campanula latiloba.

The article praises the planting around the widened section of the leat: meadow grass and astilbes contrasting with gunnera and Hosta sieboldii. Further upstream the leat is bordered by clumps of roses. The lawn sweeps up past a holm oak (two other trees had apparently been got rid of ) to the low retaining wall, above which Mrs Robb had made a wide bed of herbaceous plants. Over the paved path that led back to the Justice Room courtyard they planted a laburnum tunnel (no longer in existence). Just east of where the leat flows out under the wall a small enclosure formerly used for dumping grass cuttings had been renamed Woodruff's Corner after the 'general factotum' who rebuilt the walls and laid the paving, now softened by salvias, Dicentra scandens and campanulas. Another addition was a collection of stone sinks in a gravel courtyard just west of the outbuilding. It was Mrs Robb's intention to run gardening courses at Chisenbury, but financial problems forced them to move (to Cothay Manor, in Somerset), and it was Mr and Mrs Manser who took on the running of Chisenbury.

John Manser has added pieces of sculpture - the Waiting Woman at the end of the Bowling Alley and Woman with Wet Hair in the leat, both by Gerald Laing; a strange steel bird in the pond, a bench in the form of a giant wooden hand in the meadow and a huge granite apple in the orchard. He has also built a decorative steel bridge over the leat, a rose-covered steel pergola with ogee arches and an undulating outline over the path behind the house. These were designed and made by Paul Elliot. He also made the domed steel treillage, swathed in roses, that forms the centrepiece of the new parterre on the site of the greenhouse. This is formed with brick paths edged with box, with beds of roses, alliums, gladioli, paeonies, delphiniums and clematis-covered obelisks. He has also planted a screen of pleached limes across the south end of the forecourt. Yew topiary alongside the pergola, and in the square south of the forecourt, has added a more formal character to the garden. His plans for new planting include the replanting of the borders in the forecourt to a design by Tom Stuart-Smith, and the replanting of the long border by the north-east boundary wall.

Chisenbury Priory has seen a succession of keen gardeners, each contributing to its beauty and making it a garden that one must visit to appreciate this superb work of garden art.

Gareth Slater

My thanks to John Manser for taking us round his garden and providing the Edwardian photographs; to Mary Anne Robb for describing her own contribution and that of her predecessors; and to Sandy Haynes for summarising the history and listing the documents in the Wiltshire & Swindon Record Office, whose staff I also thank.

References include the following:

Janet H. Stevenson, 'Enford' in Victoria County History of Wiltshire,

VolXI(O.U.P., 1980)

John Sales, West Country Gardens (Gloucester, Alan Sutton, 1980)

Cosima Armytage, 'Chisenbury Priory' in W.G.T. Journal No 79,

Spring 1989

George Plumptre, 'When Walls do a Garden Make' in Country Life,

May 20, 1993

Timothy Mowl, Historic Gardens of Wiltshire (Stroud, Tempus, 2004)

Andrews & Dury, Map of Wiltshire, 1773

Tithe Map of the Tithing of East Chisenbury in the Parish

of Enford, 1844

Ordnance Survey: Wiltshire, Sheets XLVII.3 & 7 (1900, 1924 and 1939)

National Monuments Records Centre: Aerial photographs of 1925,

1927-29, 1954 and 1971.