Former walled kitchen garden to Claremont House

Former Walled Kitchen Garden to Claremont House

This walled kitchen garden was built around 1723, probably designed by Sir John Vanbrugh for the Duke of Newcastle, and subsequently modified by William Kent between 1738 and 1742. It is constructed mainly in red brick, with yellow brick copings to some bastions and white brick arches to the gateways.

Although historically recorded as rectangular, the garden is actually trapezoidal in plan, extending approximately 210 metres by 100 metres. Two internal walls run parallel to the shorter sides, stopping short of the outer walls. A diagonal, south-facing wall exists in the north-east section and dates from 1738.

The outer walls stand 4.0 to 4.5 metres high. They have a plinth at the base and are finished with either brick-on-edge coping or clay roof tile weathering above a plain brick cornice. Full-height buttress piers are positioned at approximately 4-metre intervals, with more substantial hollow bastions rising above the wall line at 21.6-metre intervals. These bastions are topped with similar brick copings, some finished in yellow brick. The two internal walls are of comparable construction with regular intermediate buttress piers and are therefore contemporary with the outer walls. Each contains a central opening flanked by piers, now blocked by later brickwork. A thick, diagonally-placed south-facing fruit wall occupies the north-east quadrant and terminates in rounded piers. Traces of mortar and limewash on the south-facing elevation indicate the former presence of lean-to structures, probably glasshouses.

The north-east vehicular entrance features a brick pedimented gateway flanked by brick bastions. It originally had Vanbrugh's brick round arch, which was modified and replaced with an elliptical white brick arch around 1738 by William Kent. The southern vehicular entrance, now blocked by a later eastern coach house, remains visible in its basement.

Two pedestrian entrances are built within bastions: one adjacent to White Cottage and the other within the grounds of 8 Claremont Drive. Both have rusticated brick piers and flat gauged brick arches beneath projecting stone cornices, with original timber door frames intact. Four smaller cambered arched openings, dating from around 1738, are symmetrically placed on the longitudinal walls. A former entrance to the stable yard is visible in the south-west boundary wall.

Brick footpaths constructed with small yellow brick paviours were uncovered adjacent to the southernmost pedestrian gate in the north-west wall during repairs in 2012, though the full extent of these paths is unknown.

Some walls retain original pointing with incised horizontal penny-struck joints, notably adjacent to the pedestrian entrance within 8 Claremont Drive.

The six historic internal subdivisions have been further divided by modern housing development. The infill houses and later boundaries created between these properties are not of special interest.