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‘I’m not sure what that plant’s called,’ said Mrs Caroe. ‘I’ll have to speak to the gardener.’ And as he came into view she called out: ‘Darling, can you come here a minute?’ For the gardeners at Vann, a striking Arts and Crafts house near Godalming in Surrey, are its inhabitants, Martin and Mary Caroe. ‘Martin has an eye for juxtaposition,’ says Mrs Caroe of the foliage. ‘I’m just the weeder.’ So saying, she jumps down a considerable drop to pluck out an offensive intruder and scrambles back to the path, adding a layer of mud to her gardening garb.
Martin is the third-generation Caroe at Vann and, like his father and grandfather before him, is an architect. His grandfather, the church architect WD Caroe, was good at juxtaposition too, and it was he who in 1907 fashioned Vann into what it is today, welding the house’s 16th-century core – with later additions – to the large 17th-century barn, various sheds, pig sties, a cottage and his own extension. The outcome is a surprisingly open-plan whole. So cleverly did he perform this operation, and so naturally do house and garden merge, with roses rambling over the rusty-red roof and white wisteria growing horizontally along one wall, it is hard to believe it has not stood as it is for centuries.
While the house was being reinvented, the garden was created for the first time – a pond and orchard its only distinguishing features. WD Caroe laid it out, diverting the stream to run between two yew hedges, looking down to the bottom of the valley, and put in bridges, paths, pergolas and stone seats. His wife, Grace, took charge of the planting. Then in 1911 they called in their gardening neighbour Gertrude Jekyll to advise them on the wooded water gardens, and she drew up plans and supplied plants. These can be identified, for a friend of Mrs Caroe’s came across Miss Jekyll’s plant list in a shoebox in a Godalming library; ‘RTGo January 1913, 7 osmunda – 4 shillings; 10 Lent hellebores – 5 shillings’, reads one entry in her neat handwriting. Other of her plants still at Vann include Spiraea aruncus, sedges, water elder and snowflakes.
Not that Martin and Mary Caroe knew any of this in 1960 when, with their growing brood of children, they moved in. This was the first time Vann had been lived in (other than as a weekend home) for over 50 years, although Martin’s father had created a market garden there after Grace’s death in 1947 (WD had died nine years earlier), when the garden had more or less reverted to wilderness. The water gardens were silted solid, and the teenage Martin helped his father dig them out by hand. Thus he discovered his interest in tending and cultivating.
Bringing a garden back to life is, if anything, harder than a house, and the struggle to keep it up never ends. In 1960 ground elder was rife, honey fungus and sawfly on the attack, and deer from the nearby copse ate everything. (Today, mothballs in bits of old tights are tied to trees and shrubs. They decompose slowly and deter the creatures. Originally there were three gardeners, but the Caroes now consider themselves fortunate to have ten hours of help a week, and can both be found outside every daylight hour of the weekend – and a few dark ones too.
The sense of tamed wilderness is very much part of Vann’s charm. The formal garden on the east side of the house – with its brick paths, clipped yews, avenues of tall Fuchsia magellanica, huge abutilon and busy borders – gives no clue as to what lies on the other side. Here the garden opens up: the large pond and pergola to the water’s edge ahead, stepped water gardens and a wood to the right, and beyond, ploughed fields and wooded hills. As you walk towards the dell you notice clumps of elegant curly ferns – part of Miss Jekyll’s original planting. There’s Polypodium vulgare, which Martin believes was chosen for its curious pronged ends, the Californian evergreen blechnum and woodrush, among others.
The woodland valley is magical, with tall trees, dappled light, a deeply banked stream twisting through the middle, and a path round its upper rim. The boggy land is 800m into the heavy Weald clay (‘The village is half clay and half sand – different plants grow on each side of the road,’ explains Mr Caroe) and a haven for spring flowers: a carpet of cowslips is followed by a viola and forget-me-not haze till June; the valley’s sides are bright with daffodils, anemones and hellebores. At the bottom is Grace Caroe’s white spring garden, first a mass of snowdrops, later bobbing with early narcissi, fritillaries, crocuses and martagon lilies. Purple crocuses were spotted there this year. ‘They’ll have to go,’ laughs Mrs Caroe. A change in climate has led to a rash of wild spotted and little green orchids. Martin Caroe points out two large dams, probably created when the land was mined for iron – a local industry till two centuries ago. Traditional palings erected in 1907 still fence the wood.
On the other side of the water gardens is a weeping wychelm and a spindleberry. ‘I liked the spindleberry fairy in Flower Fairies as a child.’ explains Mrs Caroe. Past a curly hazel are tree peonies and a winter honeysuckle – both grown from seed. Yellow water lilies – a British native – float in the quarter-acre pond, and rodgersias, yellow cornus, Gunnera manicata and black Sambucus nigra grow around it, along with fuzzy holodiscus. The enormous acer has grown energetically since the 1987 hurricane felled its neighbouring oaks and ashes. Old photographs show how complicated the garden’s layout used to be, says Mrs Caroe; ‘simplifying it has done an enormous amount to accent the house, and the hurricane helped. Now there is a feeling of space.’
But the best surprise – created just over ten years ago – are the long borders around the narrow channel beyond the pond, enclosed by the stately yew walk planted by WD in 1909. This used to be a rockery, but its new flowery incarnation is, the Caroes rightly judge, their greatest triumph. Something is in flower for seven months of the year. Scillas and crocuses are followed by tulips, foxgloves, pink primulas with a dark leaf, mossy saxifrages, sisyrinchiums, yellow poppies, sedums and lots of penstemons – ‘Martin’s latest fashion’ – all punctuated by four large bullets of clipped yew and clumps of silvery santolina.
A door in the yew hedge leads to the kitchen garden with its roofless fruit cages. ‘I don’t mind the birds helping themselves,’ says Mrs, although it does mean there isn’t so much for us.’ Espaliered brown snout apples on a wavy wall are used to make cider.
A charity concert has been held in the barn every summer for 30 years but the garden (listed in 1985) is open several times a year, and plants are sold at Easter and in May. ‘If you see something you fancy, please ask, and if we can spare some we will,’ announces a sign – a tall order when you think that on the last open day some 750 people came. Surprisingly, of all the rare and lovely plants here, the one most asked for is cowslip – 140 plants were dug up one afternoon. For myself, the most thrilling experience was to stand at the top of the yew walk looking down to the wood, and see the kingfisher who has taken to swooping down and skimming over the whole stretch.
Vann Garden, Hambledon, Godalming, Surrey, GU8 4EF. Details: vanngarden.co.uk
A version of this article first appeared in the June 1993 issue, and was reproduced in the July 2017 issue of The World of Interiors. Learn about our subscription offers
