A grand old Tudor manor house whose gardens had slipped into disarray, Chenies Manor in Buckinghamshire underwent a revival in the 1950s thanks to Elizabeth Macleod Matthews, and her methods are employed by her daughter-in-law, Boo, to this day
WORDS KERRIE LLOYD-DAWSON PHOTOGRAPHS CLIVE NICHOLS
If trees could talk, the specimens standing in the grounds of Chenies Manor in Buckinghamshire would have some fascinating tales to tell. Set amid 400 acres of peaceful countryside overlooking the Chess Valley, the fortified brick house was built in 1460 by Sir John Cheyne as a family home. In 1526, the house passed by marriage to John Russell, a rising star in the royal court, who in 1550 was bestowed with the title of Earl of Bedford. Russell extensively developed the property, and by 1560 it was known as Chenies Palace.
For a hundred years Chenies Palace was the seat of the Dukes of Bedford, during which time it played host to royal visitors Henry VIII and Elizabeth I on numerous occasions. Elizabeth I famously lost a piece of jewellery, so the story goes, while sitting in the topiary garden underneath the canopy of an ancient, gnarled oak. Now known as ‘Elizabeth’s oak’, what secrets could it reveal to us today?
Around 1627, the 4th Earl of Bedford moved the family seat to Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire and Chenies was subsequently occupied by a series of tenants. As is often the fate of great houses, it fell gradually into a state of decline and disrepair. Then, in 1957, it became the home of the newly married Lt Col Alistair Macleod Matthews and his wife Elizabeth, and the next chapter in its history began.
Armed with her father’s words of encouragement “You will never be bored”, Elizabeth set about restoring the house and returning it to its roots as a family home.
There was no garden at that time. The land had been used as part of the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign during World War II and was planted with potatoes and grazed by sheep. Elizabeth was able to source an old plan and became passionate about restoring the gardens to their original Tudor layout. In the 1980s, following a successful fundraising opening in aid of the nearby St Michael’s Church, the family began welcoming the public to enjoy the house and garden. A tulip festival became an annual spring event, followed by a dazzling dahlia festival, and an annual plant fair that has now been running for a quarter of a century.
The current owners, Elizabeth and Alistair’s son Charles and his wife, Boo, say they are really just ca
