Fantasy and reality merge in the otherworldly garden of The Manor at Hemingford Grey, setting for Lucy Boston’s The Children of Green Knowe, where rose-spangled borders, sharp topiary and dreamy meadows mingle
WORDS PHILIP CLAYTON PHOTOGRAPHS ANNA OMIOTEK-TOTT
It is interesting how a lifelong fascination with plants and gardens can be initiated by subtle early influences; among mine I’m sure were the children’s novels written by Cambridgeshire author Lucy Boston, of which The Children of Green Knowe is best known. While the eponymous Green Knowe is fictional, it was based on the author’s home at Hemingford Grey, a village four miles east of Huntingdon, set on the southern bank of the River Great Ouse.
The Manor is one of UK’s oldest inhabited buildings: parts of it date to 1130, and the village is mentioned in the Domesday Book. Lucy’s books often feature ghosts, so perhaps it’s just imagination, but much about Hemingford Grey (even the name, which comes from the de Grey family, who once lived at the manor) has a curious air of otherworldliness.
The entrance to the Manor’s gardens is through a gate reached by walking a riverside path. As the waters slip past, silvery willows arch above and resident warblers sound their melancholy calls. It feels as if you have left the quiet but car-lined High Street far behind in only a few paces. Just ahead, where the river bends, there is a characterful domed tree, just within the Manor’s gardens; that silhouette can only belong to an elm, in this case a Huntingdon elm (Ulmus x vegeta). With a modicum of resistance to the disease that changed the appearance of our countryside forever, this hybrid is a precious survivor.
The boundary wall is low enough here to offer an inviting panorama. The Manor sits off-centre, its brick-faced, five-windowed gable end facing the river, three storeys high. Attached are surviving sloping-roofed extensions, witnesses from various eras as the house grew and contracted over 900 years of habitation.
Today though, there is a surprise. The familiar topiary, rose garden and herbaceous beds where perennials intermingle to charming effect are much in evidence, but lawns that were once closely mowed are now flowery mead: billowing grass filled with meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria), ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare) and, in some areas, sapphire-blue cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus) and purple knapweed (C. nigra). Bees and butterflies danc
