GREAT DIXTER HOUSE AND GARDENS

Some images from my visit to

GREAT DIXTER HOUSE AND GARDENS,

Northiam, East Sussex

 

 

 

 

Great Dixter House was built in the middle of the fifteenth century

(picture looking south from the sunken garden)

 

 

 

 

 

and restored and enlarged in 1910 by the celebrated architect

Edwin Lutyens. Above can be seen a view of the Great Hall

looking towards the entrance.

 

 

 

 

 

Lutyens removed some of the fifteenth century alterations and

revealed much of the medieval magnificence of the house as

can be seen in the Great Hall, the largest surviving timber-

framed Hall in the country. The Hall can be seen on the right

of the picture taken from the Topiary Lawn.

 

 

 

 

 

Great Dixter was the family home of Christopher Lloyd, the well-

known horticultural writer and garden designer whose passion for

Great Dixter and its gardens has been passed down to the current

Head Gardener Fergus Garrett. This is a view of the Long Border

looking towards the old Mulberry, house and Great Hall.

 

 

 

 

 

The Great Hall as seen from the front entrance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During Edwardian times Lutyens also added domestic quarters.

This image is looking south-east from the front entrance.

 

 

 

 

 

The house has many 17th and 18th century contents

which were collected by Christopher Lloyd's father

Nathaniel. The examples of needlework which can be

 seen in the house are by Christopher's mother Daisy

along with fine needlecraft from Christopher and his

siblings.

 

 

 

 

 

The view towards the Topiary Garden and Orchards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking west from the Topiary Garden towards the house.

 

 

 

 

 

The house sits beautifully in the landscape and

draws the eye towards it.

 

 

 

 

 

One of the many fine examples of topiary in the garden.

 

 

 

 

 

Another view from the Long Border.

 

 

 

 

 

The view from the Blue Garden.

 

 

 

Along with the beautiful house with its fifteenth century rooms and furnishings there is a Victorian Oast House; the garden, which is not preserved in a perfect image of the past, flourishes and evolves towards the future, just as Lloyd would have wished it to, has much to offer from meadow flowers and mixed borders, an exotic garden and orchards and natural ponds to delight the senses.