Walled Garden, Preston Hall

Walled Garden, Preston Hall

Designed by Robert Mitchell in 1795, this is a near-square walled garden forming part of the wider Preston Hall estate. It sits within a group that includes the Stables, Temple, Preston Hall itself, and the Lion's Gates. The garden was created during a general programme of estate improvements carried out at the end of the 18th century. The main walled enclosure is built in brick with polished ashlar dressings, buttresses, and long and short quoins. Its original formal quadrant layout of paths survives, with a sundial at the centre.

The complex comprises the main walled garden with an additional canted north wall, an integral single-storey Dutch-gabled Gardener's House, a pair of three-storey octagonal gazebos, and glasshouses adjoining the internal garden wall. Associated back sheds lie to the north and further glasshouses to the south.

External Walls

The garden wall has a flat ashlar coping along its top. In areas where glasshouses have previously stood, sections of the brick wall have been lime-washed or rendered. To the north and west, the external faces of the walls are plain brick. The rear of the Gardener's House occupies the centre of the north wall, with a pair of small outhouses adjoining to its left and a further outhouse to its right. The west wall has a doorway to its left.

Gardener's House

The Gardener's House is a harled, single-storey, three-bay building with sandstone ashlar dressings. It has a central door flanked by windows, with raised Dutch-gabled sides, an east-facing window (extended to the west), and gablehead stacks. To the rear, there are three regularly placed bays, with a bipartite window to the third bay, and an extension adjoining to the right — including a former store — with a door to the left and windows to the right.

South Wall

The south wall was remodelled in 1888 and is the most ornate elevation. It features a formal stylised-arch entrance with decorative wrought-iron gates. A large central round-headed plaque, inscribed with the initials JC and decorated with carved swags, fruit, and a bird, breaks through the wallhead and is held in place by decorative stone supports; a carved date stone within a shield sits below. The interior face of this feature is also decorated. Flanking the entrance are stepped ashlar buttresses surmounted by lion statues — the left lion holds a shield bearing three billets arranged two over one, the right lion holds a shield with a clasped Dexter hand. These buttresses terminate in low wing walls holding rounded Italianate planters. The remainder of the south elevation is plain brick with regularly spaced supporting buttresses in alternating ashlar and brick, each headed with a large carved rose or thistle finial. On the interior face of the wall, a carved foliate panel sits above the arched entrance.

East Wall

The east wall is plain brick with low doors to the left and right, each doorway framed by ashlar long and short quoins and an ashlar lintel. An undated armorial panel is inset above the right door, which retains a now-damaged timber panelled surround. The left doorway appears plain from the outside but the interior reveals a reused roll-moulded surround with a lintel carved with the inscription "16 C [heart shape] IB 90" and a surmounting cornice; the door itself is missing.

Internal Wall, Sheds, Gazebos, and Glasshouses

South elevation: A brick wall with thin ashlar copings, rising higher than the boundary wall before curving down to meet it. At the far right, where the internal wall joins the east boundary wall, there is a large rectangular arch. The rest of this elevation formerly carried a full-length lean-to timber glasshouse, of which remains survive. A pair of doors at the centre gives access to the interiors of the gazebos.

North elevation: The north face of the internal wall carries single-storey, ashlar, lean-to style terraces of sheds to the left and right, irregularly fenestrated but retaining identifiable spaces including a potting shed, stores, a fruit room, and a boiler room. At the centre stands a one-and-a-half-storey, five-bay structure, possibly a garden office, with three-storey hexagonal gazebos rising at the outer bays. The central section has a door, a bipartite wallhead dormer breaking the eaves, and single windows to the flanks.

The Gazebos

Each gazebo is accessed at ground level by steps leading to a two-leaf timber panelled door. The ashlar first floor has a window. Main access to the brick second floor is through a semi-glazed entrance door on the south elevation — facing south-west on the left gazebo and south-east on the right — with a rectangular fanlight featuring spiderweb glazing above. The remaining bays of each gazebo have alternate plain and aediculed windows. Each gazebo is topped by a pyramidal roof behind a low solid parapet, surmounted by a wrought-iron weather vane made up of crossed rods indicating compass points with a directional arrow.

The two gazebos were formerly linked at first-floor level by a catwalk with a stone balustrade — now collapsed — with carved stone eagles to each flank and an architraved armorial plaque at the centre.

Glazing and Roofing

Sash and case windows throughout the gazebos and back sheds are glazed with 12-pane timber frames. The garden office has paired four-pane timber windows and partially glazed timber doors with fanlights above. The Gardener's House has 8-, 9-, and 15-pane glazing. The gazebos have pyramidal piended grey slate roofs with lead ridging. The Gardener's House and lean-to outhouses have pitched roofs. Conservatories and greenhouses are fitted with timber and multi-paned glazing. Rainwater goods throughout are painted cast iron. The Gardener's House has harled stacks with ashlar neck copes and later chimney cans.

Interior

In the east gazebo, the ground floor has a stone flagged floor with timber tongue-and-groove panelling to part height. A hexagonal stone staircase with plain iron balusters and a mahogany handrail rises through the open-plan interior. The west gazebo contains rooms, which were not accessible for inspection in 2001. Both gazebos formerly had weather vanes projecting down through the ceiling into the interior, allowing occupants to read wind direction without going outside; the grilles for these vanes survive.

Sundial

At the convergence of the garden paths stands a sundial comprising a carved classical base supporting a large brass armillary sphere.

Historical Context and Significance

The idea of building ornamental turrets from which to view the garden was fashionable at the end of the 18th century. The gazebos here are considered fine examples of the type, which were usually built in pairs flanking or terminating a terrace. At the time of construction they were regarded as exceptionally cutting edge. One of the gazebos was designed to serve as "a fruit room, tea-room, library or small horticultural museum." The practical indoor weather vanes — allowing occupants to check wind direction from inside — were also a notable feature.

Not everyone was admiring. The garden writer J. C. Loudon recorded his disapproval, complaining that "The Modern Method of Carrying summerhouses above hothouse as at Preston Hall has a very bad effect on scenery, besides their incongruity, when considered as overlooking the kitchen garden which certainly, like the kitchen itself, is not an object intended for beauty." By 1842, however, The Gardener's Magazine described it as "an excellent and superiorly designed kitchen garden" in which over forty different varieties of fig were cultivated.

The kitchen garden retains its original quadrant layout. The section near the Gardener's House still has forcing greenhouses. A formal rose garden with a classical marble statue is sited near the south wall, and a slip garden surrounds the whole enclosure. The walled portion was latterly operated as a chrysanthemum nursery until 1972 and subsequently used to grow vegetables. It was disused at the time of listing.