Great Maytham Hall

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The walled garden of Great Maytham Hall, near Rolvenden, Kent, U.K., provided the inspiration for one of the most famous of all books for children, The Secret Garden. Its author, Frances Hodgson Burnett, lived at Great Maytham Hall from 1898 to 1907, where she found the old walled garden dating from 1721 sadly overgrown and neglected.[1] Aided by a robin, she discovered the door hidden amongst the ivy, and began the restoration of the garden, which she planted with hundreds of roses. She set up a table and chair in the gazebo, and dressed always in a white dress and large hat, she wrote a number of books in the peace and tranquility of her scented secret garden.

When Sir Edwin Lutyens rebuilt Great Maytham Hall in 1910-12 for the Right Honerable H. J. Tennant, a prominent Liberal Member of Parliament, he retained the old walled garden as an adjunct to the grand new brick house in the manner of Sir Christopher Wren, but landscaped the terraced lawns and surrounding parkland in his signature style, in partnership with Gertrude Jekyll, who planted his design. The gardens and grounds were well cared for by the Tennants until the outbreak of the Second World War, when the house was requisitioned by the army. As part of the "Dig for Victory" campaign, Frances Hodgson Burnett's beautiful roses were replaced with cabbages and leeks, and the manicured lawns were patriotically planted with potatoes and carrots. A jettisoned German bomb in the middle of the former lawn did not help to improve matters, and after the war the house stood empty for many years, and the gardens were left to decline.

In 1965 Great Maytham Hall was purchased and restored by the Mutual Households Association, now the Country Houses Association, a charity dedicated to saving and preserving historic stately homes. The house, a Grade II Listed Building,[2] was converted into fifteen flats, with residents sharing the reception rooms, entrance hall and drawing room; its first residents then set about restoring the gardens and grounds. In December 2003 the Country Houses' Association announced that it was closing down its residential business and selling the eight Grade I and II listed buildings it owned.[3]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Its previous owner, Miss Monypenny, the daughter of Thomas Gybbon Monypeny (DNB s.v. "Thomas Lyte", whose portrait was at Maytham) was the last of a family long in possession of the house.
  2. ^ UKPG Database
  3. ^ (BBC News) "Historic houses to close" 15 December 2003.

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