THE LONDON GARDENERor The Gardener’s IntelligencerVol no

THE LONDON GARDENER or The Gardener’s Intelligencer Vol no.13 For the years 2007-2008

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21. Jersey Gardens, showing from left to right: space for bowling green; the rock garden, surrounded by trees, grass and winding paths; planted path; central garden laid out with grass,

peripheral walk, trees, shrubs and seats; tennis courts and children’s playing field. (OS 1936)

22. Diagrams showing the distribution of rocks from Reginald Farrer, The Rock Garden(London, 1912)

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William McDonald Campbell and the design of Jersey Gardens, Hounslow

William McDonald Campbell and thedesign of Jersey Gardens, HounslowBy Hazel Conway

Jersey Gardens lies to the south-west ofOsterley Park on land that was predomi-nantly farmland and market gardens, with

just a few houses, until the building of theGreat West Road from 1925. The gardens arelocated alongside the north side and adjacentto the Great West Road, and sand and gravelfor constructing the road were extracted fromthe site. Jersey Gardens’ link to Osterley Parkis also a direct one since it takes its name fromthe Earls of Jersey, owners of the estate.George Villiers, 5th Earl of Jersey succeeded to the estate of Osterley in 1805 and in 1945 the 9th Earl of Jersey donated the house andgrounds to the nation. It is now owned by theNational Trust.

The Great West Road was built torelieve traffic congestion in Chiswick,Brentford and Hounslow. When Art Decofactories were built in the late 1920s and early1930s, such as Firestone (demolished Augustbank holiday, 1980), Gillette and Pyrene, thissection became known as the ‘golden mile’.The opening of the new road and the subse-quent opening of Osterley Station (architectCharles Holden, 1934) meant that the districtof Hounslow began to develop rapidly andwith it came recognition of the need to planrecreational facilities.

Jersey Gardens, designed by WilliamMcDonald Campbell, is an example of astrictly linear park with gardens designed tocater for all ages. (fig. 21) Its major feature isthe substantial sunken rock garden set in greensurroundings. A planted alleyway separatesthis area from a small central garden laid outwith grass, a peripheral walk, trees, shrubs andseats. There is a hard-surfaced area for tennisand other games, and a children’s playing fieldlater became a playground, built on top of aWorld War II air raid shelter. Jersey Gardensopened in 1931, and five years later, in 1936, abowling green and library opened on a site tothe west of the Gardens, separated from themby an access road and detached villa. Unlike inmany parks nationally, these facilities wereeach given their own separate space andboundary rather than being incorporated intothe overall park design, such as can be seen for

example in Stanley Park, Blackpool (designedby Thomas Mawson, 1926), or in the parksdesigned by Captain A.E. Sandys-Winch inNorwich in the inter-war period.1

William McDonald Campbell (1900–1964) was appointed Park Superintendent tothe Heston and Isleworth Urban DistrictCouncil in January 1927. At that time the onlypublic recreation grounds in the district wereIsleworth Recreation Ground, St John’s Road,Isleworth (now St John’s Gardens) andHounslow Recreation Ground, Inwood Road,Hounslow (now Inwood Park).2 The followingyear the Parks and Open Spaces Departmentwas set up. Between 1927 and 1932 when heresigned, Campbell was responsible for build-ing and/or restoring seven parks in theBorough, but Jersey Gardens was the only parkto feature a substantial rock garden.3

Campbell spent his early years inBarrow-in-Furness, and joined Vickers Ltd asan apprentice fitter and turner after leavingschool. For health reasons he decided tochange career and joined the Barrow ParksDepartment where he stayed for four years.After a studentship at the John InnesHorticultural Institute he became a studentgardener at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kewin 1922. At the same time he studied surveyingand book-keeping at Richmond TechnicalInstitute and these qualifications enabled himin 1924 to become landscape foreman underA. Blackburn in the Blackpool ParksDepartment. He also assisted in laying outStanley Park for 18 months.4 He then moved toBirmingham University where he was engagedwith laying out sports and pleasure grounds.5

There he was involved in the creation andmanagement of the 6-acre WinterbourneBotanic Garden (subsequently bequeathed tothe University in 1944). Winterbourne Housewas a suburban Arts and Crafts villa built in1903 for Margaret and John Nettlefold, withan Arts and Crafts garden developed byMargaret Nettlefold. In 1925 the property wassold to John McDonald who developed newareas in the garden including a scree garden.1. A.P. Anderson, The Captain and the Norwich Parks (The NorwichSociety, 2000).2. F. H. Freeman, Parks, Open Spaces and Cemeteries (CivicConference Handbook, 7-8 June 1947, Borough of Heston andIsleworth).3. The other four parks were: Lampton Park, Redlees Park, HestonPark and Beaversfield Park.4. Gardeners’ Chronicle, No.2649, 2 October 1937, p.264.5. Journal of the Kew Guild, vol.8, No. 69, pp.456-61.



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Images from the 1930s show a sandstone rockgarden, with a lake, overlooked by a Japaneseteahouse and a Japanese bridge, which showedstrong similarities in layout to Campbell’sdesign for Jersey Gardens.

On his appointment as ParkSuperintendent to the urban district of Hestonand Isleworth, Campbell commented that itwould be easy to level out the Jersey Gardenssite and plant it ‘in the orthodox manner’.However, he thought this would be a mistakesince the gravel pit provided the opportunityto create ‘a sunken garden without the expenseof excavating’.6 His changing ideas regardingthe design and planting of the proposed rockgarden provide an interesting insight into thevariety of attitudes towards rock gardens pre-vailing in the inter-war period.

Rock gardens have a long history thatcan be traced back to the earliest traditions ofgarden design in China. In Europe and theUK the development of rock gardens relatedclosely to the exploration of mountainousregions and the discovery and passion foralpine plants. Their development in the nine-teenth century is summarised by Brent Elliottin Victorian Gardens (London, 1986). Englandduring the nineteenth century saw two maintraditions of rock garden construction evolve.One involved the disposition of large rocks tocreate dramatic landscapes. Joseph Paxton’smassive structure at Chatsworth included the54-ft high Wellington rock and cascade.7 Afew years later, in 1847, he used massive rocksaround the lakes in Birkenhead Park to pro-vide variety and drama in an otherwise flatlandscape, and in People’s Park, Halifax(designed by Paxton and Edward Milner,1857), rocky outcrops were used to screen theentrances. James Pulham was also an impor-tant contributor to the design of dramaticlandscapes with his invention of recipes to cre-ate artificial rocks that successfully imitatedthose found naturally. In Battersea Park(designed by James Pennethorne and JohnGibson, 1856) the Pulhamite rockwork andcascade opened in the late 1860s. In someinstances rockwork imitated well-known exot-ic locations, such as the miniature Khyber Pass

in imitation stone that formed part of theoriginal layout of East Park, Hull (designed byE. A. Peak, 1887). While all these rockworkconstructions were planted, the planting nev-ertheless tended to take a subordinate role, asdid that of alpine plants.

A completely different emphasis camefrom James Backhouse of York (established 1859), who used large masses ofrock, water, alpines, dwarf shrubs and conifersto create large rock gardens in his York nurseries. He successfully demonstrated theplanting of alpines in soil pockets in rockeries,and was very influential. As well as workingfor many private clients, his constructionsincluded the 1/2-acre rock garden inBirmingham Botanic Gardens (1895), whichbecame one of its most popular features.8 Inbotanic gardens the main emphasis was natu-rally on the plants themselves. In the 1880s anew rock garden at Kew had become an urgentnecessity, with a bequest of 3,000 alpine plantsmade on the understanding that they could betransferred immediately. William Thistleton-Dyer, then Assistant Director, designed thenew Pyrenean rock garden as a 540-ft longvalley with a winding path taking the place ofa streambed, and this opened in 1882. Gifts ofCheddar limestone and Bath oolite supple-mented the insufficient funds and in additionlarge tree roots, favoured by Thistleton-Dyer,buttressed the curving banks along the path.9

By the time Campbell was a student at Kew in1922 the rock garden had been partly rebuiltwith Cheddar limestone. This rock garden wasexcavated, in contrast to the more usualmethod of raised and mounded constructions.

The emphasis on creating the right con-ditions in which alpine plants could thrive wasreinforced by plantsmen and writers such asReginald Farrer and E. A. Bowles. In his bookThe Rock Garden, Farrer illustrated a variety ofmethods of rock distribution and made hispreferences clear.10 (fig. 22) Another influenceon rock garden development came from theJapanese-British Exhibition of 1910, butaccording to Graham Stuart Thomas it wasthe annual competitions sponsored by theHorticultural Society at Chelsea Flower Show8. P. Ballard, An Oasis of Delight (London, 1983). 9. R. Desmond, Kew: the History of the Royal Botanic Gardens(London, 2nd edition, 2007), p.244.10. Reginald Farrer, The Rock Garden (London, 1912).

6. Urban District of Heston and Isleworth (UDHI) Parks and OpenSpaces Committee Minutes, 1 May 1928.7. K. Colquhoun, A Thing in Disguise: the visionary life of JosephPaxton (London, 2003), p.114.


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23. Limestone pavements with grikes, The Burren, Co. Clare, Ireland (Photograph: Hazel Conway)

24. Rock Garden, Preston Park, Brighton, created in 1936(Photograph: Hazel Conway)



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25. Jersey Gardens, 1931(London Borough of Hounslow)

26. Jersey Gardens, c. 1950(London Borough of Hounslow)


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between 1912 and 1960 that became the prima-ry influence in the twentieth century.11 Thesecompetitions were widely reported in the gar-dening press and were influential in both theprivate and public realm. An insight into someof the issues of concern to those laying out andmanaging rock gardens in the inter-war periodcan be gained from the Report of theConference held in London by the RoyalHorticultural Society and the Alpine Societyin May 1936 entitled Rock Gardens and RockPlants. There was much discussion on layingout a rock garden that was ‘true to nature’ interms of geological formation, stratification or‘a surprise outcrop of rock, or group of out-crops in situations where Nature would permitthem’.12 Others promoted the use of flat siteswhere flat slabs of stones could be bedded likepaving stones, with alpines thriving in theinterstices. This is similar, but on a very muchsmaller scale, to the grikes that form micro-cli-mates in the limestone pavements of theBurren in Ireland. (fig. 23) The introduction inEdinburgh Botanic Gardens of flat scree ormoraine let into a lawn proved very influentialand the relative balance between rocks and turfwas another important area of debate. Forsome, turf was seen as essential for peace andbeauty in the garden, but from a practicalmaintenance point of view it must be mow-able. This meant an adequate distancebetween rocky features, with the various ele-ments of a rock garden given a green grassysetting. The new rock garden in Preston Park,Brighton, which opened in 1936, provides anexcellent illustration of this. (fig. 24) Theremoval of railings in Preston Park in the 1930smeant that with the new rock garden on theother side of the road, the park became ineffect a parkway into the resort.

While it is difficult to ascertain howmany public parks introduced rock gardens inthe inter-war period, there were certainly asufficient number for W. W. Pettigrew tomention them and to give advice on theirplanting in the first book written on the man-agement and administration of public parks:Municipal Parks: layout, management and

administration (London, 1937). Pettigrew wasappointed Head Gardener of Parks and OpenSpaces in Cardiff in 1891 and becameSuperintendent of the Manchester Parks in1913. His advice on the planting of rock gar-dens in public parks was that they could not bejudged by the same criteria used by alpine spe-cialists. The challenge in public parks was toproduce ‘pleasing effects over a long period…’.This meant using plants that ‘no expert would tolerate in a private rock garden’. He advisedthose responsible for the planting in publicparks to exercise their freedom of choice, butnot to take this too far and ‘risk making apark’s rock garden an occasion for derisionamong alpine lovers’. Rarer alpines could becultivated ‘wherever it is safe’ to do so, eventhough they were frequently stolen, no matterhow carefully they were guarded.13 Pettigrewalso thought the provision of wide footpathswas essential in public parks.14 All these issueswere confronted by Campbell during thecourse of his design of Jersey Gardens.15

Soon after Campbell was appointedPark Superintendent, the Urban DistrictCouncil of Heston and Isleworth applied to the Ministry of Health to borrow two thousand pounds for the purchase of 5 acres ofland for an open space destined to becomeJersey Gardens. The Council Minutes notedthat the whole area was booming.16

Campbell’s initial suggestion was forwinding footpaths banked on either side withrockery work, alpine plants and a lily pond, thewhole set in secluded surroundings.17 His nextproposal replaced the lily pond with a lake,crossed by a Japanese or rustic bridge and bystepping stones. To the north of the lake heproposed a shelter and a mound with a circular platform with seats to look out on thegardens, which would be similar in effect tothe Japanese bridge and lake in theWinterbourne Gardens.18 However, since there

11. Graham Stuart Thomas, The Rock Garden and its Plants (London,1989).12. Royal Horticultural Society and the Alpine Society, Rock Gardensand Rock Plants Conference Report, May 1936, London, p.37.

13. W.W. Pettigrew, Municipal Parks: layout, management and admin-istration (London, 1937), p.172.14. ibid, plate 24.15. The London Inventory of Historic Green Space created and main-tained by the Trust is an invaluable source of information. However,dating the introduction of specific rock gardens can be problematic.The Appendix below gives some idea of the number of Londonparks that featured rock gardens built in the inter-war period (1919 –1939). 16. UDHI Parks and Open Spaces Committee Minutes, 28 June1927; 14 July 1927.17. UDHI Parks and Open Spaces Committee Minutes, 1 May 1928.18. UDHI Parks and Open Spaces Committee Minutes, 2 October1929.



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was no natural water flow and the lake wouldbecome stagnant, this proposal was modifiedand the lake and stepping stones omitted.Campbell’s final suggestion was to continuethe alpine gardens, combined with glades ofturf, along the lower levels and these can beclearly seen in the photographs of the gardensdating from its opening in 1931. (fig. 25) Alongthe valley island beds of grass surrounded byflat rocks break up the footpath. Campbellpresented the costs of the proposal to the Parksand Open Spaces Committee on 4th

December 1929. They included 350 tonnes ofstone from either the Cheddar Gorge orWestmorland limestone. The following yearhe presented a scale model to the Committee.19

Construction started in September 1930 andthe site for the circular shelter was prepared.Despite delays due to bad weather the rockgarden was complete by early March 1931 andthe shelter by June. An opening date of 18th

July 1931 was proposed, but the proposal for anofficial opening was defeated at Council forfinancial reasons. Nevertheless the MiddlesexChronicle thought the gardens a credit to theborough and ‘an extraordinary transformationof what had been an eyesore and little morethan a dust heap’.20 The Chairman of the Parksand Open Spaces Committee thought ‘it wasone of the most wonderful works ever carriedout in Hounslow and was an example to otherauthorities of what could be done with a pieceof land’.21 By the end of the year, the trees,shrubs and alpines were making good progressand the bluebells and daffodils planted. By thebeginning of 1932 the small central garden wasstill not in a fit state for planting and neededploughing and levelling, and on 2nd March 1932Campbell resigned his post and moved toSouthend-on-Sea.

From 1932-37 he was involved in theconstruction of Chalkwell Park and the RockGardens at Southend-on-Sea.22 He also sup-ported the acquisition of Belfairs Great Wood

(40 acres) as a Nature Reserve for the people ofthe town. ‘… it is an opportunity of acquiringsomething which, no matter how skilled, onewould never hope to reproduce’.23 In 1937 hebecame Curator at the Royal Botanic Gardens,Kew where he worked until he retired in 1960.During the war years he was seconded to theMinistry of Home Security for some monthsto organise the horticultural section of theCamouflage Establishment and after the warhe toured the war graves of France andBelgium with the War Graves Commission asan advisor. In 1958 he reviewed the conditionof the botanic garden in Dominica for theMinistry of Trade and Production and alsoprepared the layout of six playgrounds andopen spaces and reported on aspects of townplanning in the two main towns there. On hisvisits he collected a great variety of plant mate-rial. From 1950 to 1960 he was secretary of theKew Guild and a keen football player and in1951 he became President of the Institute ofPark Administration. Five years later, in 1957,he joined the Royal Horticultural Societywhere he was awarded the Victoria Medal, thehighest medal for horticulture given by theSociety. He died in 1964.24 As his obituaryillustrates, Campbell made a significant con-tribution both to horticulture and to parkdesign and development, and worked on somevery important parks.

In terms of historic significance, it is thescale and sophistication of the original rockgarden that makes Jersey Gardens a site of par-ticular historic interest. (fig. 26) Although nowmuch overgrown, sufficient original fabricremains for an historically-based restoration.(figs. 27, 28 & 29) The garden appears on theInventory of Historic Green Spaces produced bythe London Parks and Gardens Trust. Thefinal word should perhaps come from theJournal of Park Administration, the officialjournal of the Institute of ParkAdministration, which noted that during thepast decade (1927-37) parks departments hadbeen dealing with derelict land, such as refuseshoots and tips in their districts. ‘... these haveby no means all disappeared under the dressingof parks and gardens and sports fields’ and the

19. UDHI Parks and Open Spaces Committee Minutes, 8 January 1930.20. Reported in UDHI Parks and Open Spaces CommitteeMinutes, 27 June 1931.21. ibid.22. The rock gardens, which featured a waterfall, lay below theshrubbery and had views of the pier and the sea. After World War IIthey became part of Never-Never Land, a children’s garden populat-ed with characters from fairy tales and cartoons. This featured various tableaux that were lit at night by concealed lighting.

23. B.M. Spooner and J.P. Bowdrey, (eds), The Wildlife and History ofBelfairs Nature Reserve (South Essex Natural History Society, 1988).24. Obituary, Richmond & Twickenham Times, 9 October 1964.



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27. Jersey Gardens, 2007(Photograph: Hazel Conway)

28. Jersey Gardens, 2007(Photograph: Hazel Conway)



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29. Jersey Gardens, base of shelter, 2007(Photograph: Hazel Conway)


Estuary English

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article called for such land to become the piècede résistance in any parks department scheme.25

Jersey Gardens would certainly have qualified.

AppendixBarnsbury Square, Islington, 1891, 1933/4. Conveyed to Islington Council in 1933 when theMPGA gave funds for its restoration and planting.Opened in 1934 with lawns and paths and a rockeryrunning the length of the upper lawn. This area waslater redesigned 1960-70, but some remnants of therockery remain.

Betts Park, Bromley, 1935. Remains of rockwork consisting largely of slag andbroken concrete.

Bush Hill Gardens, Enfield, 1925-8. Rock garden with pond and a small bridge over it,located near the entrance.

Eltham Palace Gardens, II*, Greenwich, 1936. Rock garden of Westmorland limestone, runningalongside the moat with pools and cascades. Recently restored.

Enfield Crematorium, Enfield, 1938. Features a number of gardens including a rock garden.

Forster Memorial Park, Lewisham, 1919-22, expanded 1937. Ancient woodland, bedding and rockery.

Heathfield, Croydon, 19th and 20th centuries; public park, 1960. Estate bought 1927 when the house and garden wererestored. The rock garden and terraces were laid out atthis date.

Hillcroft College, Kingston, 1877, 1920s.1935 garden includes rockery.

Kelsey Park, Beckenham, 18th – 20th centuries; public park, 1913. In 1933/4 the Cedar Lawn Estate was added to thepark and a rockwork cascade built at the north end of the main lake.

King George’s Park, Wandsworth, 1921-3, 1938, post 1945.Laid out as Southfields Park, 1921-3 by Percy Cane.Rockery near lake.

Springfield Gardens, Ealing, 1934. Land reclamation project; new garden featured pergolaand rockeries.

Vale Mascal II*, Bexley, 1745-1775, c.1920. Extensive rockwork and grotto dating from the 1920s.

Vauxhall Park, Lambeth, 1890, c.1930. Small rockery as background to miniature village of sixhouses installed c.1930.

* * * * * * *

AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Sally Williams for her assistance

in locating rock gardens on the London Parks &Gardens Trust Inventory Database; Land Use

Consultants, for whom much of this research wasundertaken; Pat Wortley, Kew Guide and resident ofSouthend-on-Sea, whose home Campbell visited on

several occasions when she was a child.

Estuary EnglishBy The Perambulator

Anyone who has followed the evolvingThames Gateway programme willhave noted that the programme has

generated a special language all of its own. The‘vision’ behind the Thames Gateway compris-es ‘redefining work, reconnecting with nature,reasserting individualism and reinventing ouridentity’. The language is simple but opaque:this is ‘A place of change: socially, culturally,economically and politically’; there will be ‘anew environmental aesthetic in landscapedesign and architecture’; ‘The truth is thatidentity defines us’, ‘the future ThamesGateway should find new ways to allow peopleto create the kind of communities they actual-ly want’.1 Beyond a kind of shallow, corporateoptimism, meaning is hard to pin down. As forreconnecting with nature, this seems to comedown to making the area ‘a place where Britain

25. Journal of Park Administration, December 1937, p.225. 1. New Things Happen: a guide to the future Thames Gateway(London: CABE, 2006), p.7.


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THE LONDON GARDENERor The Gardener’s IntelligencerVol no