Lea Rhododendron Gardens
For a few short glorious weeks in early summer, the wooded hillside above the Derwent Valley at Lea is a blaze of colour. This is when Lea Rhododendron Gardens come into their own every year. Brian Spencer tells the story of one man’s vision that has been backed up by three generations of a devoted family. It was John Marsden-Smedley (1867-1959), owner of the John Smedley manufacturers of quality woollen knitwear who made his residence at Lea, rebuilding the farm house of Lea Green into a house echoing his position as the local squire. Today the house and its immediate grounds are used as a residential and day centre by Derbyshire County Council Education Department as an outdoor activity centre. Marsden-Smedley was a keen horticulturist, growing flowers, vegetables and fruit trees behind high sheltering walls. As the site was comparatively exposed at an altitude of around 1,000 feet (305m), to aid existing woodland, he planted masses of trees to act as wind-breaks. These trees were to become a useful addition in his soon to follow, love of rhododendrons and azaleas. In order to find the most suitable site for these plants more suited to the high sunny slopes of the Himalayas, Marsden-Smedley tried planting them in various sites around his estate; the remnants of these trials can still be seen dotted around woodland clearings. In 1935, at the age of sixty-eight and inspired by a visit to Bodnant Gardens in North Wales, together with one to the Rothschild family’s Exbury gardens in Hampshire, he decided to develop his own rhododendron garden. One site in particular provided the ideal locality and became the present site of Lea Gardens. Surrounded by tall Scots pines, sycamore, yew, chestnut, oak and silver birch, some already there and others planted by Marsden-Smedley in order to create wind-breaks and provide shelter. Using a shallow hollow of an ancient quarry on the opposite side of the road surrounding the estate, skilled estate craftsmen used the abundant stone to build retaining walls, paths and beds for the plants which were soon to follow. Soil was brought in from other parts of the estate in order to top up the naturally occurring sandy soil. Coal ash from the furnace at his woollen mill was also used to add to this topping-up process. It was during this work that several Roman quern-stones were discovered (used for hand grinding flour). Apparently the garden is built on the site of a small quarry where a particularly fine-grained layer of grit-stone suitable for these stones can be found. Records from that time speak of purchases from all the major specialist growers throughout the British Isles. John Marsden-Smedley also decided to try to establish less-hardy varieties normally only successful in sheltered gardens on the west coast. To his delight he found that by careful planting in sheltered parts of the quarry-garden, they could survive the rigours of most Peak District winters. Many of his original specimens still flourish, almost a century after their planting. Together, over 350 varieties of species and hybrid rhododendrons and azaleas were planted by him and had begun to establish themselves in the 2-acre (0.8 ha) site before his death in 1959 at the age of ninety-two. When the estate was divided and sold, the gardens were bought by Peter and Nancy Tye. They were joined by Joyce Colyer a year later, who came with her expertise as an estate manager for John Marsden-Colyer, also bringing her intimate knowledge of the gardens and their collection of colourful plants. Nancy Tye had an artistic flair for rockery and garden design and it was she who created the alpine scree garden that complements the entrance to the rhododendron collection. The main garden was expanded under Peter and Nancy’s care by the introduction of new plants, ornamental shrubs and a small water garden. In 1960 the gardens were opened to the public and seven years later they built their attractive house overlooking the garden. The next generation to care for Lea Rhododendron Garden was Jonathan and Jenny Tye who retired from the Royal Air Force in 1980. Instead of flying Vulcan bombers, Jonathan and Jenny expanded their inbred flair for horticulture and increased the garden with new plantings. They were later joined by their son Peter, who specialises in the growing and marketing of rhododendrons. As plants begin to exceed their natural lifespan, they are gradually being replaced with new plantings, using the opportunity to bring in unusual varieties. Exciting new hybrids such as the American kalmias below the house, and flamboyantly coloured Japanese yakusimanums collection blooming near the alpine scree garden; almost every colour in a kaleidoscopic spectrum is there, ranging from white, through yellow, orange, pink and bright red; blue is even featured when the exotic Himalayan meconopsis poppy comes into flower in the alpine garden. Backing them is the breath-taking azalea bed which must feature on countless amateur photographs. Paths meander up and down the sloping site, past massive orchid-like flowers of huge rhododendron bushes, where there is colour all around. While the best time to visit Lea Rhododendron Gardens is in mid-May to the end of June and often well into July – there is one variety aptly named Christmas Cheer whose tiny single-petalled flowers come into bloom in late December. With the opening of a tea room, Lea Gardens has become a popular attraction. Visited by plant lovers or those who simply want to enjoy the eye-catching display, it now covers about 4 acres (1.6 ha), planted with over 550 different varieties of rhododendrons and azaleas. Plant sales on site offer a wide range of the varieties which might have caught your eye as you wander round this idyllic place. 00
Lost Houses – Stainsby House
Any reader who thinks I might have run out of substantial lost country houses to describe by now will be, I am afraid, mistaken. I may have been seduced into writing about some modest ones, but more substantial casualties are still unrecorded in this series. One of them is Stainsby House, Smalley, seat of the Wilmot-Sitwell family. In The Derbyshire Country House (3rd edition 2001), I described this house as ‘remarkably large and incorrigibly unlovely’ and I feel that I can stand by that assessment without demur. One always expects Classical country houses to be symmetrical, but Stainsby was anything but. Stone built of finely ashlared Rough Rock from Horsley Castle quarry, the entrance front, which faced approximately North, had a recessed, wide, three bay three storey centre flanked on the left by a two bay wing which was built slightly forward of the centre and which extended by a further three bays to the west but of only two lower storeys. To the right was a much longer four bay wing, also breaking forward, and the two projections were joined by a ground floor loggia centered by a pedimented Ionic portico. There were quoins at the angles, a top parapet and grooved cornice. As if that wasn’t enough, the south (garden) front had a regular three bay pedimented centre, flanked by two bays either side set slightly back, although the attic storey to the right had three lights, whilst that to the left only two. The east portion ended with a full height canted bay, but this feature was absent from the west end of the façade, which stopped abruptly with the lower three bay two storey part seemingly tacked on and set back a little further. At the west end, too, was a sort of pavilion wing with five bays facing west, beyond which was the coach house and stable court with a high arcaded lantern, probably the handsomest part of the entire building. The origin of the house and estate are equally complex. A part of Smalley came into the hands of the Morleys of Morley but, by c1250 it had come to William de Steynesby, a member of the family of Steynesby from the village near Hardwick we now spell Stainsby, and it is thanks to him that the estate acquired that name. His grandson, Sir William de Steynesby died c1300 and from him it somehow became the property of the Sacheverells of Hopwell about 1601. Because the estate was rich in coal, it was extremely valuable and was sold on again to George, second son of George Mower of Barlow Woodseats, whose name in the context of Stainsby is more often spelled More. In 1629, aged 21 he married Mary daughter of Robert Wilmot of Chaddesden. With his son also George (died c1705), he exploited the coal. The second George More died without surviving issue when the estate was again sold to a Heanor mining entrepreneur John Fletcher (died 1734), whose newly granted (1731) coat-of-arms was a riot of mining implements. He probably built the core of the later house, being the wide three bay three storey centre portion. Indeed, the Mores’ house must have been a much more modest affair, taxed on only three hearths in 1670. Fletcher’s son married the eventual heiress of the Smalley Hall estate (which went on his death to the eldest grandson). The youngest grandson , John Fletcher, inherited Stainsby. With his death without issue, it came to his sister, married to Francis Barber of Greasley, Notts, who like all the other families involved, were coal owners. The estate then passed to Francis’s son John (1734-1801), who lived amongst the family’s Warwickshire coal mines at Weddington and allowed his mother to remain in the house until her death. He is notable as a friend of John Whitehurst and was the inventor of the gas turbine. When old Mrs Barber died the estate was sold, through a middle man called Samuel Buxton, to Edward Sacheverell Wilmot, a grandson of Robert Wilmot of Chaddesden Hall, Derby who had married Joyce, the heiress of the famous Whig politician, William Sacheverell, whose extensive estate included that of Morley. His aim in acquiring the estate was to unite the two portions of the original Morley family holding, half of which he had already inherited from the Sacheverells. Another Sacheverell heiress had conveyed a third portion of the estate to the Sitwells of Renishaw and George Sitwell’s heiress Elizabeth, had left it to him in her will, obliging him to assume the surname and arms of Sitwell in addition to Wilmot. He seems immediately to have set about enlarging the house by adding the projecting wings, presumably in view of their irregularity in separate building campaigns, although the four bay one may originally have been narrower. Whatever additions had previously been made to the Fletchers’ house is beyond our ken, but it may have dictated the disparity in size of the projecting bays and the strange placing of the attic windows on the garden front. Whether he had an architect – Thomas Gardner of Uttoxeter built in this plain monumental style in the 1790s locally – or used a local builder we do not know. The new owner died in 1836 whereupon his son, Edward Degge Wilmot-Sitwell decided on a rebuild which Charles Kerry claims was done in 1839, including having the house ‘refaced and restored’. This seems to have included the west extension, the entrance front arcaded loggia and the canted bay on the right of the garden front. It may also have included the Main Road boundary wall with its strange conically roofed bastions and Gothick gateway, along with the expansion of the right hand bay of the entrance front as well. As it would seem likely that any scheme of rebuilding would have surely included a matching bay to the left of the garden front, one is of the opinion that the alterations were actually set in train by Wilmot-Sitwell senior
