Manor House at Sutton Courtenay

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“ The Romance and Magic of Manor House at Sutton Courtenay.”

he Manor originally belonged to Saxon andNorman Kings, was a royal palace and waslisted as a royal residence in the Domesdaysurvey. In the 8th Century the Abbot ofAbingdon gave it to Cynewulf, King of theWest Saxons. The Manor controlled thewharfs for barges using the Thames. Thewharfs were located in the stream by theManor House Courtyard.

The current Manor House dates from late11th Century. The oldest part is a barrel-vaulted cellar in the middle of the eastwing and it was here that Queen Matilda,wife of King Henry I, gave birth in 1101to their first daughter (who becameEmpress Matilda). William the Conquerorvisited the Manor.

Manor House at Sutton Courtenay

In 1177, the Manor was granted by theEmpress’ son, Henry II, to his great friend,Reginald Courtenay, from whom the Manorderives its name. Up until 1293 it seems, tohave been the principal home of theCourtenays. In that year Hugh Courtenaysucceeded a distant relative as Earl ofDevon and inherited large estates in thatcounty.

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rom then on, Sutton Courtenay seems to have been chiefly used as a dower house by the Earl of Devon’s mother. Around 1306, theManor was purchased by the Brouns family and became known as ‘Brouns Court’. They were responsible for the substantial buildingworks between 1377 and 1422 when they added the original hall in the centre.

In Henry VII’s reign, the Manor passed to the Hulse family who added the West Wing in the 16th Century. When Thomas Hulse died inthe 1613 with no male heir it was inherited by Lord Craven whose family added, in the 17th Century, the gables in the centre section, theIpswich windows and loggia in the courtyard. They also built the barn near to the Manor House. The Gate Piers in front of the housedate from 1670 and are believed to be the work of Inigo Jones.

The octagonal stone Sundial by the East Wing area, beside which Norah Lindsay is photographed (left), is 17th Century.

The Manor was later bought by William Monk, and in 1886, the Manor became the property of the late Lord Wantage. In 1895 he gaveit as a wedding present to his cousin Harry Lindsay when he married Norah.

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arry and Norah Lindsay set aboutrestoring the Manor House and creating itsfamous gardens. The Manor becamerenowned for its weekend parties.

Sir Henry (Chips) Channon, a regular guestof the Lindsays, caught its magic perfectlyin his diaries: “20 June 1936...We camehere to this floral, lovely paradise...thesmell of roses, the lapping of the water, thecolours...what a house Sutton Courtenay is.For two generations it has moulded theyouth of England...all must have carriedaway memories of bathing in its Thamesbackwater, of reading poetry in the rosegarden, of cutting trees and gardening, oflistening to and loving Norah Lindsay.”

However, Harry and Norah later separatedand were short of money. Norah turned todesigning gardens to support herself. Sheundertook her design work at a number ofimportant gardens including the gardens atCliveden, Hidcote, Gleneagles Hotel,Mottisfont Abbey, Fort Belvedere, EsherPalace, Sissinghurst Palace, PetworthHouse, Trent Park.

The Manor was requisitioned during the2nd World War as a school and then afterthe war bought by David Astor (proprietorand editor of the Observer and close family

friend of the Lindsays) who lived here untilhis death in 2001.

Anthony and Penelope Warne bought the

Manor House from Bridget Astor in 2004.

The Manor House is Grade II* Listed.

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The Gardenshe Manor House gardens are Listed and, over the last 100 years, were

fundamentally influenced by two extraordinarily talented lady gardeners.Norah Lindsay who lived at the Manor House between 1895 and 1940, andBrenda Colvin who remodelled the gardens in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Norah Lindsay 1873~1948

“Everyone wants to say the happiness here is unforgettable and unique” Norah Lindsay

orah combined the naturalistic style of Gertrude Jekyll and WilliamRobinson’s “Arts and Crafts” style with the geometry of the clipped IrishYews and box, design ideas she had learnt from her travels in Italy. Shelikened the abundance of free growing flowers to her own lifestyle - withoutrestraint or restrictive boundaries. Norah created pergolas, geometric andfanciful shapes of elegant topiary, mixed with pedestals and terracotta urnsbrimming with soft mounds of colour and texture, but she also carefullypreserved the cool green savannahs flowing serenely along the riverbank,lush meadows speckled with snakes head fritillaries, osiers and giantsnowdrops.

Norah Lindsay, socialite and garden designer - a beautiful, musical,artistically talented, high spirited and great conversationalist. Also, a brillianthostess who mingled with the political and social luminaries of the era. In1904 her home the Manor House of Sutton Courtenay overflowed withgarden beds filled with flowers, guest room beds filled with friends androwing boats on the Thames filled with the handsome youth of the day -many of them from Oxford University. Weekends spent in the company of

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Norah Lindsay were always filled with laughter and music, glorious mealsand non-stop outdoor activities.

Norah Lindsay in the 1931 Country Life wrote “Every garden should be acontinuation of the house it surrounds and where the dwelling is old andsleepy, the garden too must be drowsy and lie under the spell of the ages”.

Sir Henry (Chips) Channon wrote in his memoirs “Sutton Courtenay,roses, the river and the youth of England splashing in the Thames, andNorah, the sublime Norah, Russian ballet, food in the courtyard, Chopin,colour, gardening, a riot, but a healthy riot of the senses”.

Lady Diana Cooper wrote: “The place of all others for romance andgathering rosebuds and making hay and jumping over the moon was SuttonCourtenay...flowers literally overflowed everywhere and drifted off into thewilderness”.

In the years between the wars Norah Lindsay was a major influence on thecourse of gardening design and planting. She developed her skills in herown magical garden at the Manor House, Sutton Courtenay inOxfordshire, widely regarded as one of the most beautiful gardens inEngland. Then, in 1924, facing financial ruin after the collapse of hermarriage, she embarked on a career as a garden designer.

Her commissions ranged from the gardens of quiet English manor housesto the grand estates of the country house set, to royal gardens in Italy,France and Yugoslavia. She designed gardens for Nancy Astor at Clivedenin Buckinghamshire, the Prince of Wales at Fort Belvedere in WindsorGreat Park, Nancy Lancaster at both Kelmarsh in Northamptonshire andDitchley in Oxfordshire, Consuela Vanderbilt Balsan in France, Prince Paulof Yugoslavia at Bled, Princess Aspasia at the Palazzo Contanini Accademiain Venice, and Prince Otto von Bismarck at Friedrichsruh in Germany.She also worked with her friend Lawrence Johnston to create the greatgarden at Hidcote in Gloucestershire. She successfully and deftly gardened

in different soils and varied climates acrossall of England and throughout Europe.

All this time she managed to give theimpression that she remained “a socialbutterfly, a gadfly”. A fascinating, wittyhostess and correspondent with a gift forhospitality and friendship, she had anintriguing circle of friends. She lunchedwith Winston Churchill, holidayed withEdith Wharton and partied with DavidNiven and Merle Oberon. However,although she dined at the tables of the rich,the next day she would be up at dawn towork with their gardeners.

FROM THE TIMES OBITUARY:

“...Norah Lindsay was lavishly endowed bynature. Her beauty gladdened our eyes. Hermusic enchanted our hearts. She had anacute and critical appreciation of literature,especially poetry. Her brilliant letters werereceived with delight by her friends - and -she was an unrivalled talker. Herconversation sparkled with unexpectedanalogy and lightening repartee.

The happiest years of her life were spent atSutton Courtenay, her home. There, as oneentered the gate, care sloughed off one’sshoulder. In that loveliest of all gardens,

her friends gathered: Oxford boys, CabinetMinisters, gay girls, wits and poets,beautiful women, and with Norah radiatinggaiety, life touched a higher level of vitalityand happiness than in any other place.

Above all, she was a gardener. Laying outand planting were her career. When her witand charm are forgotten, her gardens inEngland, France and Belgium and Italy willremain as a permanent memorial to onewhose mastery in that art amounted togenius…”

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Brenda Colvin 1897~1981

renda Colvin ranks with Sylvia Grove and Geoffrey Jellicoe as apioneer of 20th Century landscape design in Britain. Colvin was avisionary and ecologically ahead of her time. A founder member andpresident of the Landscape Institute she championed the profession oflandscape architect.

Brenda worked on the gardens at the Manor House for several years forDavid Astor. She created walks and “terminal points” designed to createvistas.

She retained the tall hornbeam hedges except at a central point whereshe opened it up to Lindsay’s Persian Garden which she redesigned asthe “Jewel” garden with a parterre of Hidcote Blue lavender, yellow andwhite roses, regal lilies, tulips, “silver blue” petunias and wine redwinter flowering violas.

Colvin kept Lindsay’s vine pergola and wall fountain.

She planted the avenue of Golden Alder down to the river bank and acombination of Willows and Poplars to emphasise the contrast of lightand shadow. The formal areas close to the Manor House retained theirformer exuberance of planting and the graduation from the formal tothe informal is skilfully maintained with the move from exotic toindigenous planting easing from the Manor House out to the plantationbeyond.

Source Publications for Reference:The English Manor House by Jeremy Musson

Lost Gardens of England by Kathryn Bradley-Hole

Norah Lindsay ~ The Life and Art of a Garden Designer by Allyson Hayward

Brenda Colvin ~ A career in Landscape by Trish Gibson

Sutton Courtenay: The History of a Thames ~ Side Village by John Fletcher

Country Life Magazine

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“ The place of all others for romance and gathering rosebuds and making hay andjumping over the moon was Sutton Courtenay...flowers literally overflowed

everywhere and drifted off into the wilderness.” Lady Diana Cooper

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