Identification and description | |||||||||||||||||||
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Name | GODINTON PARK | ||||||||||||||||||
Location |
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Localisation | Latitude: 51.158976 Longitude: 0.83462322 National Grid Reference: TQ 98309 43789 Map: Download a full scale map (PDF) |
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Overview | Heritage Category: Park and Garden Grade: II* List Entry Number: 1000151 Date first listed: 01-May-1986 |
An early C20, formal, compartmentalised garden laid out by Sir Reginald Blomfield,
with surviving C17 built features, set in an C18 park with C18 and C19 planting.
HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT
The manor of Godinton was held variously by the de Godinton, Champneys, and Goldwell
families before passing through marriage to Thomas Toke in the late C15. It remained
in the Toke family until 1896 when Colonel John Leslie Toke sold the estate to Mr
George Ashley Dodd. He extended the house and laid out the present formal gardens
before selling Godinton to Mrs Bruce Ward in 1919. Her grandson, Mr Alan Wyndham Green,
inherited in 1953 and on his death in 1995 the ownership and management of the estate
passed into the hands of the present (1997) Godinton House Preservation Trust.
DESCRIPTION
LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING Godinton Park lies c 0.5km south-west
of the A20, on the immediate north-west edge of Ashford. The 104ha registered site
comprises 7ha of formal and ornamental gardens, surrounded by 97ha of parkland with
several small woods and lies on the very gentle south-facing slopes of the Great Stour
valley, the south side of which, beyond the site boundary, rises steeply to the village
and church of Great Chart on the crest of the ridge. The site is set within a landscape
of mixed pasture and arable farmland and woodland, with a minor lane running along
part of the northern boundary and the Great Stour river forming the southern boundary.
In the south-west the grounds of Swinford Manor School abut the site and to the south-east,
screened only by narrow tree belts, tongues of housing from the western edge of Ashford.
ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES The entrance to Godinton is from Godinton Lane to the north,
at North Lodge, through gate piers hung with wrought-iron gates. The drive, shown
established on this line by 1819-20 (Greenwood), follows a sweeping curve south and
then westwards, passing along the north side of the forecourt to the house and continuing
westwards towards West Lodge, which stands some 600m west of the house and outside
the registered site boundary. The large, rectangular forecourt to the house, laid
to an oval of gravel set in lawn and enclosed by tall, topiary yew hedges, is entered
on its west side from the drive. An estate map of 1621 by Samuel Pierse shows the
house approached from due north along a partly tree-lined drive. By 1769 (Andrews,
Dury and Herbert), this entrance had been replaced by the approach from the north-east
(although it followed a straight course at that time). A second drive (surviving now,
1998, as a track), laid out at the same time, runs southwards across the park towards
Great Chart. Known as Chart Avenue (Wright 1989), its southern c 400m, approaching
the railway bridge, are lined by a double avenue of grey poplars, replanted in the
1990s following storm damage in 1987 to replace the original trees planted c 1830-40
(ring counts and map evidence). A third drive, East Lodge drive (now, 1998, gone),
was added as a branch off the southern drive between 1769 (Andrews, Dury and Herbert)
and c 1818. East Lodge itself survives within C20 housing beyond the site boundary.
PRINCIPAL BUILDING Godinton House (listed grade I) lies west of the centre of the
park, on level ground. It comprises a large, red-brick, L-shaped house which was built
in 1628 by Nicholas Toke around the core of a medieval courtyard house. Its main,
east-facing facade is formed by a two-storey E-shape with attics shaped as Dutch gables
and with a single-storey porch. The north, entrance front has similar gables above
its projecting end window bays and above its central, two-storey porch. Additions
were made to create the present plan, of a complete square with a tiny, enclosed courtyard,
by John Toke in c 1760; further additions in the north-west corner in a matching style
and materials were made by Sir Reginald Blomfield (1856-1942) for George Ashley Dodd
in c 1896 (plans at Godinton). To the immediate west of the house stands a C17, red-brick
courtyard block, entered from the drive beneath a high, round-headed carriage arch
and comprising garages (former stables), Stable Cottage, Dairy Cottage, and Shepherd's
Cottage (all listed grade II).
GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS The formal gardens, laid out as a series of compartments
which include the north forecourt, surround the house to the north, east, and south
in the form of a large rectangle, enclosed along its outer edge by a massive yew hedge
with topiary buttresses and gables in a rhythmic sequence. This was planted by 1898
and is under restoration today (1997). The garden's structure of yew hedging, grass-banked
terraces, paths and vistas, was designed and constructed by Sir Reginald Blomfield
and completed by 1898. Blomfield's gardens, plans for which survive at Godinton, were
laid out on the site of a series of C17 walled enclosures surrounded by orchards and
fishponds, as recorded on Pierse's survey of 1621. These were removed and the garden
landscape informalised in the late C18 by John Toke with the gardens ands shrubberies
'laid out by Driver' (Hasted 1790). Driver may have been Samuel Driver (d 1779), a
nurseryman and landscape gardener (Harvey 1974) who also carried out work at Goodnestone
in Kent (qv). The present ornamental planting of Blomfield's layout was largely begun
in the 1950s by Mr Wyndham Green.
The east front opens onto a broad gravelled terrace walk, retained by a brick wall
c 1m high (constructed in the 1950s to replace Blomfield's original grass bank) with
flights of stone steps descending at the north and south ends onto the rectangular
principal lawn. At the north end of the lawn a few steps lead up onto the Topiary
Plat which is laid out with four box-hedge quarters, c 1m high, with pyramids at the
corners and each enclosing a columnar cypress. A large statue of Pan, set on a circular
stepped plinth, forms both the central feature of the plat and northern focus of the
main north to south axis of the gardens. South of the principal lawn is a second lawn
at a lower level, enclosed along the south side by a yew hedge and bisected by a broad,
axial gravelled walk flanked by herbaceous borders laid out by Mr Wyndham Green. The
walk terminates at a gap in the hedge and descends in a long flight of stone steps
set within a steep grassed bank to the southernmost compartment which is laid out
with a long, brick-rimmed oval pool, designed by Blomfield on the site of a former
circular, parkland pond (OS 1876). The pool is surrounded by an inner enclosure of
beech hedging and regularly spaced weeping willows (four survive (1997) from the six
planted in the 1950s) and at the south end a statue of Venus, facing Pan, forms the
southern focus of the north to south axis.
A gravelled walk extending south from the east terrace of the house forms a secondary
north to south axis which runs parallel and to the west of the pool enclosure, beneath
the remnants of a cherry and whitebeam avenue (planted 1950s). Its southern focus,
150m from the house, is a semicircular balustraded Prospect, designed by Blomfield,
which breaks forward through the boundary yew hedge to give extensive views over the
park and to Great Chart church on the skyline. The east terrace extends around the
south front of the house where it overlooks a rectangular rose garden, laid out with
triangular beds and enclosed with beech hedging to the east and south and with yew
to the west. The present layout and the beech hedging dates from the 1950s; it is
intended (1997) to restore Blomfield's original pattern of closely spaced square rose
beds. South of the rose garden, grass banks on the north and west sides enclose a
large open lawn, framed with shrubbery beds and, on the western edge, with a semicircle
of clipped box and semi-mature fastigiate beech trees, formerly housing statuary.
Extending c 200m west of the formal gardens, and to the south of the kitchen garden,
is the Wild Garden or Wilderness. Laid out with informal groups and scattered individual
trees of mixed species and ages, and with two ponds sited towards the southern post
and wire boundary, it was extensively replanted in the early 1990s after losses of
c 75% of tree cover in the storm of 1987 (Storm Damage report, 1988). The eastern
part of the Wilderness is shown occupied by an extensive pond system on an estate
map of 1621 which by 1876 (OS) appears to have been replaced by informally planted
deciduous and evergreen trees. The area of the Wilderness is shown extended to its
present, fenced limits by 1907 (OS). North of the Wilderness and on the east side
of the kitchen garden wall is a small, rectangular, walled Italian garden, built in
the 1920s to designs produced by Blomfield in 1916 but considerably modified by Mrs
Bruce Ward (Wright 1989). Entered on its south side through a colonnaded screen decorated
with statuary and festooned with wisteria, its central feature is a cruciform pool
backed at the north end by a raised, paved terrace covered by a timber pergola and
with raised beds along the west and east walls. A doorway in a brick and pointed,
pitched-roofed gazebo (C17, listed grade II), built against the west wall, leads into
the kitchen garden.
PARK The parkland to the north and east of the gardens is laid to grazing and is enclosed
on the boundaries by the mature woodland of Godinton Plantation and Balls Wood to
the north (the core of the latter recorded as a square block on Pierse's 1621 survey)
and by Chestnut Tell Plantation to the east. The parkland is abundantly scattered
with individual mature trees and a few clumps, mainly oak but also horse and sweet
chestnut, sycamore, lime, walnut, and a few conifers. Some 250m south of North Lodge,
the land rises to form a knoll, known as the Chestnut Tell (shown on Pierse's survey)
which is planted with several score of mature sweet chestnut trees over its slopes
and summit. It is intended that the 60% of trees lost in the storm of 1987 be replanted.
To the south of the formal gardens, as far as the boundary with the river, several
fields are in arable cultivation and the pattern of parkland trees is much more sparse
although a similar range of other species as in the northern parkland is mixed with
the oaks.
Both Pierse's survey of 1621 (the terrier for which has not survived) and an estate
account book with entries from 1616 to 1704 by Nicholas Toke and his nephew, confirm
the existence of an early park at Godinton, centred around Pett's Hole (200m east
of the house). By 1769, Andrews, Dury and Herbert's map shows the park greatly expanded
to the west and south-east, with late C18 and early C19 views, such as that by John
George Wood (c 1785-1800, published 1807), showing trees framing open vistas from
the east front of the house across grazed pasture. According to Christopher Hussey
(CL 1962), Samuel Driver, 'a follower of [Lancelot] Brown', also ' remodelled and
replanted the whole park', although any work beyond the gardens is not confirmed by
Hasted (1790). Little alteration occurred to the park through the C19, Greenwood describing
it in 1838 as 'picturesque and well-wooded' and his survey of 1819-20 showing its
boundaries very much as they are now (1997). Occasional park trees and five small
park clumps were added to the tree cover during the C19, but the present general pattern
of tree planting remains as shown on the 2nd edition OS map of 1898. Trees in the
southern part of the park were more abundant then, diminishing to the present, 1997,
scatter sometime after 1940 (OS).
KITCHEN GARDEN The kitchen garden, which also dates from the laying out of the gardens
in the late C18 (it is shown on Mudge's map of Kent of 1801), lies c 70m to the west
of the house. It is rectangular, 100m x 50m, and is enclosed by red-brick walls (listed
grade II) with brick piers topped by ball finials marking the various gateways, several
of which are filled with elaborate, white-painted timber screens. Two of the six or
so late C19 greenhouses survive against the north wall which is pierced at its central
point by a pair of brick oast houses with an attached bothy and potting shed (listed
grade II), converted by Blomfield in 1907. The garden is quartered by grass paths
and partly laid to fruit, vegetables, and cut flowers.
REFERENCES
E Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent ... III, (1797-1801)
[Facsimile edn 1972] John George Wood, The County of Kent: a collection of the thirty-six
large and beautiful coloured drawings and views in sepia and Indian ink of the principal
seats of the nobiltity and gentry situate in Kent (1807) [Centre for Kentish Studies,
Maidstone] C Greenwood, An epitome of county history ... vol 1, County of Kent (1838)
Country Life, 21 (11 May 1907), pp 666-73; 132 (6 December 1962), pp 1396-9; (13 December
1962), pp 1546-9; (20 December 1962), pp 1600-03 E C Lodge (ed), The Account Book
of a Kentish Estate 1616-1704 (1927) J Newman, The Buildings of England: West Kent
and the Weald (1969), pp 295-7 John Harvey, Early Nurserymen (1974) Draft storm damage
report, (HBMCE 1988) [copy on EH file] T Wright, Godinton Park, Kent, Outline Proposals
and Aims of Restoration, (unpublished report 1989) Godinton Park, Review of History
and Restoration and Management Plan, (Colvin and Moggridge May 2000)
Maps Samuel Pierse, Estate map, 1621 (Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone) J Andrews,
A Dury and W Herbert, A Topographical Map of the County of Kent ..., 2" to 1 mile,
1769 W Mudge, Map of Kent, 1" to 1 mile, 1801 C Greenwood, Map of the County of Kent
from an actual survey made in the years 1819 and 1820, c 1" to 1 mile, 1821
OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1871, published 1876 2nd edition surveyed 1896,
published 1898 3rd edition published 1908 1940 edition OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition
surveyed 1871, published 1876 3rd edition published 1907 1947 edition
Illustrations John George Wood, View of Godinton, c 1785-1800 (in Wood 1807)
Archival items Toke Family Papers (U967), (Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone)
Godinton House archives (private collection)
Description written: September 1997 Amended: June 1999 Register Inspector: VCH Edited:
October 2003
This garden or other land is registered under the Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act 1953 within the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens by Historic England for its special historic interest.