Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Early 20th century garden originally associated with the Elizabethan (1558-1603) house. The garden was designed in 1925 by Gertrude Jekyll and is divided into separate areas by yew hedges and includes a walled kitchen garden and a rose garden which was planted in 1979

Monument Types

• GARDEN (Modern - 1925 AD to 2050 AD)
• KITCHEN GARDEN (Modern - 1925 AD to 2050 AD)
• ROSE GARDEN (Modern - 1979 AD to 2050 AD)

Full description

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Early 20th century garden originally associated with the Elizabethan (1558-1603) house. The garden was designed in 1925 by Gertrude Jekyll and is divided into separate areas by yew hedges and includes a walled kitchen garden and a rose garden which was planted in 1979. (1)
Parks and gardens online ID: 3133


From the 2011 review:

"SUMMARY OF THE HISTORIC INTEREST

A garden containing, on its southern slopes, a set of terraces designed by Gertrude Jekyll in 1925 and for which her drawings survive, laid out on a site of C16 origin.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Stonepitts is situated in Seal Chart, in the parish of St Lawrence. Prior to this being established in 1867, Seal Chart was part of the parish of Seal, which in turn was originally in the combined manor of Kemsing and Seal. For many years most of the land was included in the St Clere estate, centred in Kemsing. The Domesday Book records that Geoffrey of Rots controlled this manor with part of the 840 acres also under the jurisdiction of Richard of Tonbridge.

The estate of Stonepitts came into the possession of the Theobald family during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Parts of the house possibly date from the 13th century when the name Stanpette appears in a deed of 1250. The Piers family of Westfield in Sussex then acquired the property by marriage in the mid 1600s. After the death of Sir George Piers in 1720 the estate was sold to Richard Goodhugh whose female heir married Richard Round. (Hasted)

In the Tithe apportionments of August 1840 the owners were shown to be the executors of Richard Round – William Cronk and James Phillips, whilst the property was occupied by George Cornell who had married a Rimmelian Round. By 1851, according to a Tithe amendment, ownership had been acquired by John Thornton Rogers of Kemsing.

The Cornell family is recorded as occupying the house in the census records from 1841 until 1871 when it was the centre of a substantial farm (c 92h). Rimmelian died in 1876 ending the long association with the Round family.

During the 19th century extensive farm buildings (now mostly gone) housed farm workers. The east portion of the house was once a self contained dwelling (sales particulars 1919), which would explain the census entry for 1881 when occupation was by a farm bailiff and a school at the same time. By 1891 the house was occupied by the considerable household of a Michael Pass, the retired head of a lime burning business. By 1901 the property had once again become the centre of a farm with Philip Symons and his family in residence and he was still there in 1920 with his wife Lady Edith Auckland. In that year the house name had changed slightly to Stone Pitts Grange in the electoral register. Philip died in 1926 and Edith in London in 1931 (Census Records & Electoral Registers).

By 1919 the farm and land (now c55h) had become part of the Kemsing estate and was owned by Lt-Col J M Rogers DSO. In that year the whole estate was put on the market with Stonepitts as Lot 19 (Sales Particulars).

In 1925 Helen Archdale and Lady Rhondda moved from nearby Chart Cottage (qv) to Stone Pitt Grange, as the property was then known. In collaboration with the architect G L Kennedy extensive alterations were carried out to the house including the demolition of parts of the south elevation. Because they had been so impressed with the garden at their former home, Archdale and Rhondda approached Gertrude Jekyll to design a garden for Stonepitts, which she agreed to in June 1925. Twelve of her detailed designs for the south garden survive together with an outline drawing for a rose garden (Berkeley Catalogue).

Helen Archdale corresponded with Jekyll sending a survey of the garden and fifteen pages of very detailed, descriptive notes. These covered each section of the garden giving suggestions on the elements they hoped to change or seek advice on. On several occasions she invited Jekyll to come to the garden and offered to collect her but it never happened. Rhondda and Archdale intimated that the work wouldn’t be carried out at once but be implemented over a number of years. There were delays because of the work being carried out in the house and the uncertainty of how it would affect the garden. Letters were still being exchanged in August 1927 and by 1935 Helen Archdale and Lady Rhondda had moved out.

Apart from constructing the south garden’s terraces to Gertrude Jekyll’s plans, there is no surviving evidence that her clients implemented Jekyll’s detailed layouts or planting proposals.
In 1935 Sheila and Mervyn Wingfield were living at Stone Pitts, creating yet another version of the name.

During the Second World War the house was used by the London Choir School. After the war the house was bought by a Mr and Mrs Dudley A Comonte who were there until c1975 when the Reed family then purchased it. The property was at that point advertised with just 4h (10 acres) (Sales particulars). The Reeds relocated to one of the nearby cottages when a Mr and Mrs H V A Ellingham bought the property in 1994.

The Ellinghams began the work of enhancing several areas of the garden and restoring Jekyll’s surviving terracing in the south garden (as shown on her drawings of 1925).
The property remains in private ownership."(2)

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

<2> Kent Gardens Trust, 2011, Stonepitts, Sevenoaks: The Kent Compendium of Historic Parks and Gardens for Sevenoaks District (Unpublished document). SKE30614.

Sources and further reading