Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Early 18th century gardens of an unknown size surrounding the house which dates from 1630 and was redesigned in 1700. The garden features an orangery, terraces, exotic plants, an early 19th century kitchen garden, and a small round post-medieval mound.

Monument Types

• TERRACED GARDEN (Post Medieval to Modern - 1540 AD to 2050 AD)
• ORANGERY (Post Medieval to Modern - 1700 AD to 2050 AD)
• KITCHEN GARDEN (Post Medieval to Modern - 1800 AD to 2050 AD)

Full description

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Early 18th century gardens of an unknown size surrounding the house which dates from 1630 and was redesigned in 1700. The garden features an orangery, terraces, exotic plants and an early 19th century kitchen garden. (1)

From the 2011 review:

"SUMMARY OF HISTORIC INTEREST
Formal late C19 and early C20 terraced gardens, partly on the site of and incorporating remnants of, earlier C17 and C18 gardens associated with the family of John Evelyn (the C17 diarist and author of ‘Sylva’) around an early C17 house. The site includes a detached C19 and early C20 Pinetum.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT
In the C13 the property was known as Aldham and owned by the family of that name (Hasted). It was also known as West Aldham or West Yaldham. Sir Thomas de Aldham died without male issue in the early C14 and the manor passed to his daughter Isolda and her husband John de St. Clere. It remained in the St. Clere family and became known as Aldham St. Cleres and eventually Sancleres or St. Cleres (Hasted).
The St. Clere family died out during the Wars of the Roses and early in the reign of Henry VII the estate was appropriated to Henry Lovell who built a new house there (V E Bowden, The Story of Kemsing). After his death the manor of St. Clere was divided between his two daughters. In 1519 Richard Farmer acquired the whole estate and sold it in 1537 to George Multon of Hadlow (Hasted). King James I licensed George Multon and his wife and Robert Multon and his wife to alienate the manor to Sackville Pope Esq. (Licence of James I 1617 Kent History and Library Centre U1287 T1).
The estate was sold in 1625 to Sir John Sidley Bart. who built a new mansion, which still survives, on the foundations of the old (Harris). This was completed in 1633 when a chapel was consecrated by Bishop Bancroft. Sir John died in 1673 leaving St Clere to his son Isaac who in turn left it to his son Charles. By 1702 when Sir Charles Sidley died the estate had become neglected and encumbered with debt and the house had fallen into disrepair (V.E. Bowden, The Story of Kemsing). His heirs applied to the court to have his will set aside on the grounds of his weak understanding and undue influence (Hasted) and St Clere was sold in 1719 to William Glanville Evelyn, great nephew of John Evelyn the diarist. The property remained in the Evelyn family until 1878 when it was acquired by Mark Wilks Collet.
A drawing probably intended to be engraved by Badeslade for inclusion in Harris (published 1719) and reproduced in Country Life in 1968 shows formal gardens to the west of the house and a main entrance courtyard on the north side with stone piers and iron railings. An area north west of the house called
‘The Wilderness’ in the 1st edition O.S. map is shown planted with trees in this drawing. An avenue to the west of the house shown in William Mudge’s map of Kent (1801) and in subsequent O.S. maps does not appear in the drawing and must therefore have been planted later in the C18.
William Glanville Evelyn died in 1766 and his son William inherited the estate and carried out improvements to the house, evidenced by the date 1767 on a rainwater head. He may have been responsible for the C18 parapet (Pevsner). William Evelyn was sheriff of Kent in 1757 and M.P. for Hythe. On his death in 1797 the estate passed to his daughter Frances who was married to Alexander Hume brother of Sir Abraham Hume, a notable horticulturalist and plant collector. Alexander Hume took the name Evelyn (Greenwood). The Orangery north west of the house dates from this time. Fanny Boscawen, daughter of William Glanville Evelyn by his first marriage, occasionally visited her half brother at St. Clere and wrote of the fine views from the house. Frances and Alexander Hume Evelyn had no children and St. Clere was inherited by a cousin, Lt. Col. William John Evelyn, in 1837 who occupied the mansion only ‘occasionally’ (Bagshaw).
The 1841 tithe map shows that the main house and grounds were then occupied by William John Evelyn. Lower St Clere (called Little St Clere), a C16 building 400 metres south of St. Clere itself, was occupied by a tenant, John Lockyer, but areas around it are shown as being occupied by William John Evelyn including the Fish Pond (which can be seen from the main house) and three areas of woodland called Ladies Walk, Dog Kennel Plantation and Boat House Plantation near the lake at Lower St. Clere indicating that these areas formed part of the pleasure grounds. Evelyn is also shown as occupying an area of woodland known as Birches Wood about 2 km north of St. Clere which is depicted as being planted with conifers. This area forms a pocket of acid soil (pers. comm.) suitable for growing lime hating plants. A substantial Wellingtonia survives here which is likely to date from the C19 and a number of other mature exotic trees thirty five of which are recorded as Champion trees in the Tree Register providing evidence that an arboretum was planted here in the C19.
St. Clere was owned by the Evelyn family until 1878 but after 1841 they lived mainly at Yaldham Manor and the house was occupied by a caretaker (Bowden). In about 1850 St. Clere was rented to Rev. John Ogle who ran the St. Clere Collegiate School there until the 1870s when the school moved to Sevenoaks and the house was left empty (Bowden and Garden Information Sheet).
In 1878 the St Clere estate was sold to Mark Wilks Collet (Governor of the Bank of England 1887-9 and created baronet in 1888) who embarked upon substantial work to the grounds and outbuildings which were continued after his death in 1905 by his son Sir Mark Edelman Collet. W.H Fletcher of 38 Welbeck Street, London drew up plans (some of which are lodged in the Kent History and Library Centre) for a series of terraces and formal gardens to the south and west of the house and, east of the house, a walled kitchen garden with substantial glasshouses, all of which were carried out. A racquets court and pergola were built on the west side of the house in 1908. New lodges and
entrance drives were made from the west and eastern sides of the estate. Sir Mark Wilks Collet sought advice on planting from F.R.S. Balfour of Dawyck (Kent History and Library Centre Norman archive). Sir Mark Edelman Collet planted many trees in the garden and in the pinetum in Birches Wood north of the house (Kent History and Library Centre Norman archive, Bowden). Sir Mark Edelman Collet left St. Clere in 1935 to live abroad and the property passed to his nephew Montague Collet Norman (1871-1950) who became Governor of the Bank of England and was later created Lord Norman. The estate remains in the Norman family and the garden continued to be developed. The garden designer Anthony du Gard Pasley was commissioned to design two parallel borders to the west of the house immediately south of the main drive in about 1980."

In 1977 the school archaeological group undertook an excavation and found a 'massive brick wall, of probable medieval date'. No further information (3)

<1> Parks and Gardens Data Services Limited (PGDS), 2005, Parks and Gardens UK (www.parksandgardens.org) (Website). SKE16061.

<2> Kent Gardens Trust, 2011, St Clere, Sevenoaks: The Kent Compendium of Historic Parks and Gardens for Sevenoaks District (Unpublished document). SKE30613.

<3> Arch Cant 93 1977 225 (PE Leach) (OS Card Reference). SKE36155.

Sources and further reading