Wotton was the first on my list of Evelyn-related places to visit this year, and last weekend I spent my birthday there. The house is now a hotel and conference centre owned by the Principal Hayley group.
In Evelyn’s time the house was timber-framed, with a main block flanked by two wings projecting to the north enclosing a u-shaped court. The garden lay to the south, and this is where John Evelyn first experimented with Italian-style design from the 1640’s onwards. There he created a parterre with a central fountain and viewing terraces to either side.
To the rear the natural hillside was terraced and fronted by a classical portico and grotto. The grotto was adorned with statues, of which only the Venus now remains.
The walls of the niches were encrusted with corals and shells that glittered behind gushing fountain-jets. All of this was achieved thanks to a system of ingenious conduits that diverted the flow of the natural streams that run through the grounds.
The mound was planted with beech trees which have since vanished, along with apparently all other vestiges of the seventeenth century planting.
There is some uncertainty about the date of the statues of the four seasons that flank the central access stairway. They would certainly fit in with Evelyn’s theme here, derived from Epicurean philosophy, of the powers of nature (represented principally by Venus). At any rate, all four seasons apart from Winter are now headless, which is rather sad.
I have to say that the evidence of these and other broken statues, fountains and benches and the detritus of wedding revels leave one feeling that this rare survival of seventeenth century garden design is not being properly cherished by the current owners.
Careful archaeological investigation might be able to recover the plan of the parterre. That area as well as the former orchard and kitchen garden to the east of the house are now just grassed over. If the neglected water features were repaired, and the garden replanted in period style, the result would be truly stunning. It would also, of course, attract many visitors.
The house itself has been much altered since the seventeenth century. Refaced in brick and extended in Victorian Gothic style, when it passed out of the family’s hands all its original furnishings and fittings went too.There remain a few beautiful Jacobean and Elizabethan doors, and interesting nooks and crannies. However, all the old heart of the house is reserved for corporate training and conference events, as well as wedding parties. Hotel guests stay in a modern accommodation wing, where the rooms are, frankly, bland and overpriced. It was next to impossible even to get to see any of the older rooms, as they were nearly all declared to be either in use or off-limits. Here, nevertheless, is a glimpse of the room where John Evelyn may have been born – or could it be the one next to it?!
The best part of my brief time at Wotton was the midsummer dawn chorus, the like of which I’ve honestly never heard before in my life. Thanks no doubt to the lush woods behind the mound and the many trees and streams in the garden, the variety, volume and sheer virtuosity of the birdsong was breath-taking. Looking out then from the first floor window onto the mound in the half-light, it seemed like one of those numinous fairy-hills in which legends tell that Arthur sleeps – except in this case, it must surely be the local equivalent of Venus…
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
All photos by the author except for the Evelyn sketch scanned by Jacqueline Banerjee, from http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/homes/33c.html For more information on the garden, see Small A. & Small C., John Evelyn and the Garden of Epicurus, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 60 (1997) pp. 194-214. For the basic historical facts on the house, see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wotton_House,_Surrey and for details of the architectural features, see here http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1189814.
Your blog is really informative. I really liked this post about Wotton.
Belated thanks! I like your blog, too.
I studied the web site for Wotton, reading the first hundred reviews by customers: Not ONCE was its history alluded to or commented on. The gardens were praised as a background for wedding photo’s and highly recommended; the preserved inside architecture is noted but context seems utterly uninteresting to the clients who write the reviews. The hotel doesn’t even obliquely point to the story behind the building. I’m not sure what this reflects about our times and culture, but Evelyn’s family and the past are nonentities on the web site. I don’t understand: didn’t Evelyn spark the whole idea of the National Trust? For that initiative alone his gardens and history deserves honour in my eyes. I understand it was his desire to see his Sayers garden preserved for the future that inspired him to start networking about it and build interest in a body that would watch over otherwise perishable national treasures. Do you happen to know how the house changed hands from the Evelyn fam to other owners?
I understand your feelings about the sad neglect of Wotton’s history by its current owners. I don’t know how they came to buy the place, I’m afraid. It was W. J. Evelyn in the nineteenth century, not his famous forbear John in the seventeenth, whose efforts to transfer the site of Sayes Court Garden into public ownership were a factor in the formation of the National Trust.
For an outline of the history of Sayes Court, including what happened after John Evelyn, take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayes_Court. I’m sorry to say that the oak sapling planted a couple of years ago by the National Trust, along with its tiny commemorative plaque, have since completely vanished due to vandalism.
Of course – I think I was mixing up an editor’s footnote in the gutenberg.org digital version of J.E.’s diaries. Thanks for the correction. I am familiar with cherishing a geographic spot that shows few marks of a shared history. It’s called “Mill Street Neighbourhood, Steinbach” on facebook: nothing of our old street remains except for one house; the rest is new apartment blocks and the back quarter of a mall. I created the page so that I could have a place to go when I think of it. I didn’t advertise it, and people found it: my old neighbours, grown up and getting old. I felt that way about Sayes Court and your sweet wandering through it in the blog – Thank you for that too. If I get back to London, I will leave a rose there for those who treasure it.