The Newt and Hadspen Garden
Astrantia Hapsdens Blood
Are you wondering what The Newt, who are sponsoring the 2023 Chelsea Flower Show, is?
Hadspen Garden
Hadspen
has been a noted garden since the 17th century. A superb two hectare
south-facing site built upon the original kitchen garden for the house and set
against a backdrop of mature deciduous woodland. In the middle years of the
20th century, Penelope Hobhouse, one of our most
distinguished garden writers and designers, lived there and made a garden that
was the subject of her first book, The Country Garden. The original
nursery was established by Penelope Hobhouse and Eric Smith, (plantsman and
breeder). A number of famous varieties including Anemone, Astrantia,
Hellebores, Brunnera and Hostas were bred and many still bear the Hadspen name.
The garden was opened to visitors in 1970.
A
couple of decades later, two Canadian horticulturalists, Nori and Sandra Pope,
explored and experimented with colour themes in the parabola‑shaped walled
garden. From 1998 to 2005 many rare and unusual plants were used to create more
than a kilometre of beautifully blended colour themed borders which resulted in
an influential book called ‘Colour by Design’ and made Hadspen House one of the most
talked-about gardens in Britain.’
‘In its
last phase as an open garden, Hadspen was a garden and nursery run by Canadian
horticulturalists and designers Nori and Sandra Pope who followed on from the
famous founder and gardener Penelope Hobhouse (born 1929). It drew
visitors, horticulturalists and gardeners from across the world, and the
Hadspen cultivars developed at the nursery (Smith and Hobhouse, and continued
by the Popes) were highly sought after. The Popes were renowned garden
designers, particularly for their contemporary approach to colour, and during
their time Hadspen was one of the most visited and talked about gardens in the
UK.
Nori and Sandra Pope retired in 2005, and just
before the gardens closed, the owner Nial Hobhouse, invited people to take
plants from the borders and nursery; Hadspen garden was ‘dispersed’ around
Somerset and beyond.
The Popes returned to western Canada. Niall Hobhouse
planned for a complete garden redesign at Hadspen, and announced a garden
design competition, with the intention of creating a new contemporary garden at
Hadspen House. Architects designed a new path layout in the walled garden
and all the planting in the parabola was bulldozed flat, to national outcry,
with press articles about it even in the New York
Times. The competition drew some support and design
entries, but it went unresolved, even after an eventual winner (Sarah Price)
was announced. Various work happened around 2009 in the garden in
relation to architectural designs and features, and some gardening and
planting. In 2011, the house and garden went up for sale, with the garden
redesign abandoned. Various moves for an online archive for Hadspen have
yet to come to fruition.
In June 2013, Hadspen House was sold, after more than two centuries of being in the Hobhouse family.
The Newt became a hotel so a suitable canditate to sponser Chelsea Flower Show in 2023.
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