User:DavidAnstiss/Marle Place

Marle Place
Marle Place
Location	Brenchley, Kent , UK
Coordinates	51°07′58″N 0°24′04″E / 51.1327°N 0.4011°E
Area	10 acres (40,000 m2)
Opened	1948
Owned by	Mrs Lindel Williams
Status	Open July–September, 7 days per week, between 11am - 5pm.
Plants	perennials and shrubs
Species	acers,
Collections	Arboretum, Victorian orchid house, Edwardian era rock garden and contemporary art gallery.
Website	[ Marle Place]

Marle Place is a Georgian farmhouse and garden, located on Marle Place Road near the hamlet of Brenchley in Kent, UK.

Enchanting ten acres of unusual plants and artwork create magical surprises at every turn including woodland walks, Victorian orchid house, Edwardian rockery, contemporary art gallery.

Marle Place house is set within 10 acres of privately-owned, peaceful gardens, first created in 1890 and surrounded by woodland and orchards. Over the last 100 years, the gardens have evolved to include a series of enclosed terraced gardens, tree-lined avenues, rills and ornamental ponds. In spring, there is an abundance of blossom and bulbs which are later replaced in summer by scented, old-fashioned roses and exuberant borders. In autumn the trees provide a dazzling display of colour. Historical features of the garden also include a Victorian gazebo, an Edwardian rockery and an Italianate walled garden. The Victorian greenhouse has now been restored and houses a splendid orchid collection.^[1]

History

Post 1946, it was owned by the family of the novelist Victor Canning (1911 – 1986), after the success of his book Panther's Moon, which was also turned into a film (called as Spy Hunt) as well as a few others books. He stayed there until 1969. The house was then owned by other members of his family, including his daughter (Lindel born in 1939).^[2]

He moved from Stansted in February 1952,^[3]

Marle Place Including Courtyard Wall and Gateway Wall to the North West A Grade II Listed Building. House. Early C17 (porch dated 1619) with some C18 internal refurbishment. C19 alterations (date of 1858 on rear addition); late C19 conservatory addition. Framed construction, tile-hung in the C19 with bands of scalloped tiles; C19 tiled roof with bands of scalloped tiles; brick stacks. Early C20 gateway.^[4]

A reproduction of a late C19 drawing of the house by William Twopeny exists in the National Monument Record.^[4]

extremely elegant house surrounded by a large garden which fades unobtrusively into the wooded Kent countryside . The garden is run as a small^[5]

L- plan house, dated 1619, altered in 19th century, has a single staircase re-entrant angle at end of entrance passage (passing under the main chimney stack) from the frontdoor. It has a kitchen, parlour and GP (below the great chamber) ^[6]

MARLE PLACE , I4 m . s . Again half - timbered , but hung with C19 tiles . Dated 1619 on the porch gable . Characteristically for that date , the house is almost square , with two gables in each direction , a centrally placed N porch with an oriel ^[7]

Gardens

At Marle Place, although the origins and names of the early owners are unrecorded, the core of the house is timber-framed and characteristic of the Wealden area in the early C17 (listed building description). It is shown on Hasted’s map of 1778. Census data records a farming family, Anne Fuggle and her children, as resident in 1841 and the Tithe Map 1842-44 documents the property (Marl Place) as a house with farm buildings and surrounding land. The terraces, supported by brick retaining walls or grass slopes, were constructed in the interwar period on the site of C19 orchards and hop gardens

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS The formal terraced gardens are to the immediate south-east of the house, surrounded by southward sloping lawns. The four main terraces are each approximately 60m wide. From the top to the bottom terrace, they now (2008) contain a lawn with shrub borders, a croquet lawn, a swimming pool and a scented garden. The terraces are mostly enclosed by yew hedges, each with an arch through to adjoining garden areas. Central flights of steps, partially lined with pleached limes, descend from each terrace to the next providing a long view down approximately 40 steps to the scented garden. The terraces, supported by brick retaining walls or grass slopes, were constructed in the interwar period on the site of C19 orchards and hop gardens (4th edn OS map). The entrance to the top terrace is from the courtyard on the main north front via a gravelled path along the east side of the house. The top terrace is laid out in a roughly triangular-shaped lawn with shrub borders, bounded on its north side by the roadside garden wall and on the south and east by a 1.5m yew hedge. Set in the south yew hedge approximately 50m east of the house is a late C19 single-storey, circular brick gazebo (listed grade II). It has a conical tiled roof and stained glass windows. In the late C20, its entrance was changed from north facing to south facing and is now from the croquet lawn terrace below. Below the croquet lawn terrace is the swimming pool terrace, the pool with a tiled surround and set in a lawn with an old quince tree, pampas grass and evergreens. Below this terrace are two shallow grassed terraces planted with pleached limes along their lengths. Nine brick steps descend to a similar narrow terrace, a low brick wall on its south side forming the north enclosure of the scented garden, with borders of plants such as roses, lavender and herbs. This was developed by the current owners from a sunken rose garden with lily pool (photographs in private collection), the lily pool (10m x 4m) with semi-circular ends and stone surround remaining. On the west side of the pool a gateway flanked by two 1.5m brick piers has been created in an early C20 wall to give access to the south garden front, with views north across the lawn to the house. Immediately east of the top terrace and running south-east, is a double herbaceous border planted in the mid-1990s. It is enclosed by the roadside boundary wall on the north and a beech hedge on the south and is terminated by a modern C20 bronze cast of a terracotta warrior on a stone plinth. East of the statue the brick walls curve south along the property boundary alongside an avenue of mature conifers, which leads south to a woodland walk. South of the statue a yew arch opens into a quarter-circle-shaped spring garden where a mature spruce tree is underplanted with bulbs. On the south garden front of the house there is a raised terrace of exposed aggregate concrete slabs with wisteria-covered pergolas framing the east and west ends. The terrace projects southwards at its east end enclosed by a further pergola. Views south-east from the terrace are across a lawn to two mature cedars, a weeping lime and conifers, with woodland beyond. The terrace extends northwards between the west side of the house and a mature horse chestnut to a gravel pathway fronting the converted coach house and stable block. To the east of the coach house there is an exit to an access road running east-west along the property boundary from Marle Place Road to Honeycomb Cottage. To the west of the stable block and north of the gravel path is an early C20 rock garden (approximately 10m x 20m). It has a central cascade (2008 not working) designed to flow north-south into a rill and a well, the well covered by a lychgate-style roof. The layout of the rock garden is intact, but apart from a few small trees (an Acer, a Magnolia and a yew), the plants have been replaced. To the south of the gravel path an ornamental rectangular pool with fountain forms the central feature of a lawn bounded by beech and evergreen hedges. A track runs north along the west side of the rock garden to join the access road to Marle Place Road.

Approximately 300m south of the house, is a 80m semi-circular 2m high double beech hedge, planted by the current owners in the 1970s. Until the late C19, when Marl Place was a working farm, this land was pasture (1st edn OS map), but by 1895 it is shown planted with an orchard or hops (2nd edn OS map). It was laid out as a garden in the 1920s (4th edn OS map). Since the late C20, a number of new garden areas, including silver birch and lime avenues, an arboretum, a bog garden and an ornamental lake, have been created south of the hedge. From the west end of the hedge, the young silver birch avenue runs south for approximately 100m. A temple, partly constructed from a dismantled Victorian orangery at Capel Manor, Horsmonden, forms a focal point at the southern end. Also from the west end of the beech hedge, a lime avenue extends 120m south-west to a Chilstone urn. To the west of the avenue is a C21 children’s play area, incorporating a mid-C20 concrete-lined sandpit and paddling pool. A few metres west of the end of the lime avenue, approximately 200m south-west of the house, is a pond into which a stream, its edges planted as a bog garden, runs southwards. A few metres before the stream enters the pond, a red wooden bridge crosses it, leading to parkland. PARKLAND Parkland to the south-west of the mansion is laid out as an arboretum.

KITCHEN GARDEN Approximately 200m to the west of the house there is a late C20 yew-hedged parterre-style kitchen garden (approximately 20m x 80m) with two C19 greenhouses. The layout comprises a series of small parterres with ornamental planting enclosed by low box edging, or timber-edged raised beds for vegetables, with gravel paths between them. An orchard and a nut plat have been planted by the current owners south of the yew hedge. These two areas are on the site of a mid-C20 century yew-enclosed kitchen garden extending south for 180m (1965 photograph). Located at the north end of the kitchen garden, the two surviving glasshouses (one now used as an orchid house) have fish scale glass roofs and finials (shown on the 4th edn OS map). A cold frame (labelled Tuckers of Tottenham) is sited alongside^[1]