Plants For The Water Garden

WATER GARDENS BY TWENTIETH-CENTURY DESIGNERS

GEOFFREY JELLICOE

Shute House Dorset, England

The garden of Shute House near Shaftesbury in Dorset is among the most influential of the twentieth century. Created by the designer Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe (19oo-1996) when he was in his late sixties, it combines the experience and skills of a lifetime of garden and landscape design with exuberance and a great sense of fun.

Sir Geoffrey was commissioned by Michael and Lady Anne Tree in 1968, shortly after they had acquired the fine eighteenth-century house. Curiously, it was Ronald Tree, Michael Tree's father, who had given Jellicoe his first major commission — for Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire — m 1933. Later, Jellicoe was commissioned by the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) to design the gardens of Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park and of Sandringham, another royal residence, in Norfolk. Jellicoe also designed the John F. Kennedy Memorial on the River Thames at Runnymede, Berkshire, four years before Shute reached his drawing board.

Unlike his earlier commissions, which some describe as formal — with strong axes but unsurprising in concept — Shute combines all sorts of influences garnered by Jellicoe during his long career. He wrote Italian Gardens of the Renaissance in 1915, and there are strong echoes of the Italianate at Shute. More surprisingly, however, the garden also shows a Mughal influence. The centrepiece of Shute must be the musical cascade, a rill that relies on a gentle slope to fall in steps. Between the steps are differently shaped geometric pools, each with a bubbling central fountain. Each waterfall pours into copper bowls that Jellicoe designed to play musical chords. Musical purists rather pooh-pooh this idea, but it makes a pleasant sound. Although a Mughal prince would be surprised to see the lush green lawns that flank the cascade, the running water has the same cooling and calming effect that was intended in Indian gardens.