page_title: Munstead Wood
section_title: Garden
hierarchical_section_title: Munstead Wood / Garden
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: lutyenshousesga00weav (find matches) Title: Lutyens houses and gardens Year: 1921 (1920s) Authors: Weaver, Lawrence, 1876-1930 Subjects: Lutyens, Edwin Landseer, Sir, 1869-1944 Architecture, Domestic Gardens Publisher: London, Offices of "Country life", ltd. (etc.) New York, C. Scribner's Sons Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: 19.—Munstead Wood&#160;: Paved Court and Steps on North Side. The house itself is built of the local stone, with a slightuse of half-timber in the outer wall on the north side. Greatplay is made indoors with heavy oak beams, especially inthe fine corridor on the first floor. The disposition of theworkroom, bookroom, dining-room, etc., is clearly shownon the ground-floor plan (Fig. 17), and need not, therefore,to be described in detail. Some visitors to Munstead Wood Window Treatment 35 have criticized the house on the ground that the windowsare too small and the rooms consequently not light enough.That might be a reasonable criticism if the wishes of theowner had not been taken into account, but the house isthe result of a perfect understanding between architectand client as to the sort of house to be built and its treat-ment. If the light is subdued in some rooms it is preciselybecause that was desired. Text Appearing After Image: 20.—The Tank at Munstead Wood. 36 Development of Traditional Manner CHAPTER IIITHREE SURREY HOUSES OF 1899 Orchards, Godalming—A Cloistered Quadrangle—Tiles used forWall-building—Goddards, Abinger Common—Tigbourne Court,Witley. THIS chapter illustrates three more Surrey houses in thetraditional manner which show Sir Edwin at the pointwhen he had abandoned the pursuit of the picturesque,and consequently achieved it in a more convincing fashion.Orchards was begun in 1899 for Sir William Chance—it has since changed hands—and took about three yearsto build. It is set on a wooded table-land, richly clothedwith oak and fir and silver birch, to the east of Godalmingtown. Both the house and its garden show a greater facilityin the handling of materials, and a readiness to let the massand outlines of the building develop a natural rather thana contrived picturesqueness. The grouping of the housewith its attendant and attached offices and walled gardensshow the same spirit as that Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: Munstead Wood is a Grade I listed house and garden in Munstead Heath, Busbridge on the boundary of the town of Godalming in Surrey, England, 1 mile south-east of the town centre. The garden was created first, by garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, and became widely known through her books and prolific articles in magazines such as Country Life. The Arts and Crafts style house, in which Jekyll lived from 1897 to 1932, was designed by architect Edwin Lutyens to complement the garden.
  Munstead Wood was the first in a series of influential collaborations between Lutyens and Jekyll in house and garden design. The number of these collaborations has been put at around 120; other well known ones include Deanery Garden in Berkshire and Hestercombe House in Somerset.
  The entire original area of Jekyll's property is grade I listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Since Jekyll's time, it has been divided into six plots with different owners.
  The main house, which retains the name of Munstead Wood and whose plot contains most of the original gardens, is a grade I listed building.
context_section_description: Jekyll purchased Munstead Wood in 1882 or 1883, just across Munstead Heath Road from Munstead House, where she had been living with her mother since 1878. A part of Munstead Heath, Munstead Wood was a triangular area 15 acres (6.1 ha) in total, sloping upwards from its north-west corner, which was a sandy field, to 9 acres (3.6 ha) of former Scots pine woodland, on heath soil.
  Jekyll transformed Munstead Wood gradually over many years. She allowed the felled woodland to grow back, but thinned the young trees, creating areas of different varieties and different combinations of varieties, and gave each area its own underplantings of flowers and shrubs. The resulting woodland garden was viewed via a series of long woodland walks. Nearer the house the woods merged gradually into lawns. Seasonal gardens flowered in succession through the year: the "spring garden", the "hidden garden", the "June garden", and the main herbaceous border, 200 feet (61 m) long, which flowered from July until October. Each garden displayed carefully arranged shades of colour.
  Jekyll turned the lower field into a kitchen garden. There was also a plant nursery from which she supplied plants to her clients. She also bred improved varieties of plants such as Munstead bunch primroses.
  The garden of Munstead Wood became widely known as a result of Jekyll's descriptions and photographs, in her books such as Wood and Garden (1899), Home and Garden (1900), and Colour in the Flower Garden (1908), and in her many articles, particularly in Country Life and William Robinson's magazines The Garden and Gardening Illustrated. William Robinson was a frequent visitor. Jekyll's long relationship with Country Life began when proprietor Edward Hudson first visited Munstead Wood in 1899. Her garden was notably recorded in Country Life in subsequent years by photographer Charles Latham and Herbert Cowley.
  The Gardens were written up and extensively photographed in 'English Gardens' by Henry Avray Tipping, (published  by Country Life. 1925) at page 239 of that book. 
  The gardens attached to the main house have been privately restored. Public viewing of the gardens is possible by arrangement.
caption: The Tank north of the house, 1921
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