A glorious spring at the Cotswold home of the Dukes of Beaufort, Badminton House
The approach to Badminton House, home to the Dukes of Beaufort, runs across its estate: a landscape of sweeping open views high up on a Cotswold plateau in South Gloucestershire. Country lanes meander through farmland – fields surrounded by dry-stone walls and hedgerows, copses and brakes of woodland. Mock castellated barns, designed as eye-catchers to look like pepper-pot castles in the distance, bear the hallmarks of a designed landscape on a grand scale, presided over by William Kent’s architectural masterpiece, Worcester Lodge.
Charles Bridgeman and Thomas Wright of Durham, as well as Capability Brown, all worked on the park. The north front of Badminton House with its grand Palladian façade faces the park, surveying the view painted by Canaletto – taking in the lake, mature trees and roaming herds of red deer.
So when Georgia Powell married Harry Somerset, 12th Duke of Beaufort in 2018 and moved into the house, there was quite a lot to think about. Overnight, she found that she was in charge of a 1.5-acre walled garden, Russell Page-designed parterres, two grand ornamental conservatories of pelargoniums (the warm and the cool) and the geometric south gardens, designed by Page’s pupil François Goffinet. The scheme had been brought to a pitch of prettiness by Harry’s stepmother, the garden designer Miranda Beaufort, with romantic plantings in the beds of peonies, irises, roses and delphiniums.
Having worked in journalism after leaving Oxford University, Georgia taught Classics while she brought up her two children. Gardening had been a hobby at her home at The Chantry, the family house in Somerset – though her background was more literary than horticultural (her grandparents were the writers Anthony Powell and Lady Violet Pakenham, who had bought the property in the Fifties).
Soon after she arrived at Badminton, Georgia received a gentle reminder from Miranda: ‘Don’t forget the bulb order.’ Such a note might have caused a shiver in a fainter heart, but never shy of a challenge, Georgia embraced the opportunity. ‘I realised that while I got to know the garden, the tulips offered a wonderful way to have fun with it,’ she explains. ‘I could be playful without being anxious about making dramatic changes. However many mistakes you make, it is only for a season.
‘I had Miranda’s old bulb order as a starting point,’ she adds. ‘Thinking about it led me to study the beds, borders and pots. I began to consider the way the bulbs might relate to the permanent planting, and I formed a relationship with the garden.’ Georgia also developed a strong bond with her two new joint head gardeners, Marie Wilcox and Karen Sumsion: they make a happy collaborative team. ‘Suddenly, the garden came into focus and it all began to fit together and make sense.’
Striding through the walled garden with notebook in hand, we pass ordered lines of lettuce varieties already looking plump in their deep, rich soil. Sweet pea seedlings are beginning to climb up tall pyramids skilfully made from hazel twigs. Peony-flowered tulips, a current favourite, have been planted wittily in the peony beds so that ‘Molly the Witch’ (Paeonia mlokosewitschii) is flowering alongside Tulipa ‘Danceline’ and ‘Belicia’, delicious variations on a raspberry-ripple ice cream theme – whites with pink splashes and cherry ruffles.
At the far end of the walled garden are the tulips planted for picking (all 2,000 of them), which supply the house with flowers from March until May. Rows are laid out in immaculate serried ranks, inspired by Georgia’s visits to her friend Julia Rausing’s cutting garden in Gloucestershire. A favourite among these is the lily-flowered Tulipa ‘Pretty Woman’, a lacquer red with elegant curving petals, which lasts for ages in a vase.
Back by the house, in the south gardens, the rose beds are sporting a chic monochrome combination. White Tulipa ‘Maureen’ and lily-flowered ‘White Triumphator’ bloom at the same time as the exotic, inky purple ‘Queen of Night’. Georgia has picked up the snowy, mock-orange-like flowers of the early shrub Exochorda x macrantha ‘The Bride’ with more white tulips – but has also added touches of rosy pink with Tulipa ‘Ollioules’ and T. ‘Pink Impression’ to warm it up. The planting around the fountains, originally designed with spring in mind, has a fresh greeny -yellow feel. The beds here are filled with ‘Greenstar’, ‘Ivory Floradale’, ‘Spring Green’, ‘Yellow Springgreen’ and ‘Cistula’ tulips, which chime perfectly.
It is a short stroll on to church walk, where the grass is scattered with blooms in bright, boiled sweet shades – tulips in orange, violet, scarlet, candy pink and buttercup yellow – along with early and late narcissi. Careful with planning her colour combinations elsewhere, Georgia goes into ‘Jackson Pollock mode’ here, flinging mixed bags of bulbs in all hues across the grass and planting them where they land. Unified by the green grassy background, they look good enough to eat.
Experiments with tulips in the grass are also ongoing in the magical little shell garden. Set apart behind a hedge like a secret Hortus conclusus, it is somewhere to retreat to and listen to the sound of water. Crab apple, quince and pear trees are neatly trimmed and the close-cropped turf is studded with tiny jewel-like bulbs, so that it feels like a medieval flowery mead. White Narcissus ‘Thalia’ flutters above tiny species tulips such as pink and yellow T. saxatilis, along with dusky purple snake’s head fritillaries and pale lemon Narcissus ‘Hawera’, all floating above a shimmering sea of Anemone blanda ‘Blue Shades’.
On our way back to the house, we pass a pretty, white-painted wooden seat bookended with choisya. Two large tubs on either side are packed with a mass of Tulipa ‘Red Impression’. ‘These are always the earliest to come out and were the first I saw when I arrived at Badminton in April 2018,’ Georgia recalls. ‘I can be quite capricious with the tulips and like to try new things, but I’ll never change these – they are here to stay’.
Badminton Estate: badmintonestate.com
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Britt Willoughby Dyer2/7Hornbeam hedges are the backdrop for standard small-leaved privet trees and plantings of ‘Greenstar’, ‘Yellow Springgreen’ and ‘Spring Green’ tulips in the south gardens’ water squares.
Britt Willoughby Dyer3/7Among these are deep-purple ‘Recreado’ and species varieties such as mauve-pink Tulipa saxatilis, as well as other spring bulbs.
Britt Willoughby Dyer4/7These include snake’s head fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris), Narcissus ‘Thalia’ and N. ‘Hawera’ and Anemone blanda ‘Blue Shades’.
Britt Willoughby Dyer5/7Tulips, narcissi and fritillaries thrive beside a water feature in the shell garden.
Britt Willoughby Dyer6/7Erysimum cheiri ‘Ivory White’ and Tulipa ‘Jan Reus’ are set off by a zigzag box hedge.
Britt Willoughby Dyer7/7In the south gardens, topiary yew pyramids punctuate 16 box-edged rose beds, filled in spring with a monochrome planting of tulips, including white ‘Maureen’ and lily-flowered ‘White Triumphator’ with inky ‘Queen of Night’.
