Monument record MDO38516 - Gardens at Springhead, Fontmell Magna

The early twentieth-century gardens around the former mill at Springhead. The gardens were created for Rolf and Marabel Gardiner in the early 1930s; centred around the mill pond, they rely largely upon planting for impact.

The artist Harold Squires acquired the former mill building in 1926, and had some landscaping work carried out – terracing of the slopes to mimic the medieval strip lynchets on the other side of the valley and visible from the gardens. He also had a wet area (lower down the stream) re-shaped into two pools to provide relief drainage to a boggy site. Rolf and Marabel Gardiner settled at Springhead in 1931.

Mowl <3> discusses the impact on the gardens at Springhead of noted garden designer Brenda Colvin, saying that ‘… while her exact influence on Springhead’s planting has not been recorded, that garden’s response to its topography seems to be Colvinian. … a brilliant artistic response made, almost casually at Springhead, to a pre-existing environment and persevered with for only a few years, can result in a dream garden. The painter Harold Squire was at Springhead in Fontmell Magna for a bare five years, 1926-31, but these were important Colvin years … [Squire left] in 1931. Whether Springhead had already achieved its Colvin-inspired accommodation with its own topography by that time is not certain, but it seems likely’.

The Dorset Gardens Trust, however, feel that the work is most likely to have been commissioned by the Gardiners, rather than Harold Squire, and to have been carried out between 1931 and 1933, since the Gardiners are known to have been friendly with Sylvia Crowe, who was working with Brenda Colvin at this time. The pond is described as a mill pond on the 1927 Ordnance Survey map, and the appearance of the ‘temple’ on the 1933 map suggests that the gardens were largely complete by 1933 <4>.

The impact of the garden is achieved through planting, with relatively few changes having been made to the form of the mill pond, which is fed by a spring at the eastern end, and feeds Collyer’s Brook to the west. One ornamental structure - the ‘temple’ on the 1933 Ordnance Survey map – has been added on the northern side of the pond. The structure consists of six stone reproduction pillars carved in Venetian style, supporting a wrought iron openwork dome topped by a decorative feature in the form of a cluster of wrought iron flowers, with a circular seating area and an opening at the water’s edge. Recent aerial photographs <6> show the addition, since 2009, of grassy terraces to the north of this rotunda, forming an amphitheatre.

The Gardiners were conservationists and organic farmers. Mowl considers their running of the mill for many years as an ‘idealistic centre for rural regeneration … The young campers dredged the mill pond and practised their crafts of basket weaving, gardening and farming on the surrounding lands, planting trees to successfully raise the water table. Rolf Gardiner planted three million trees in all … He died in 1971 and his daughter, Rosalind Richards, has dedicated herself to continuing his work in music and the arts, while restoring the garden to something of its original condition.’

A triangular area at the eastern end of the pond is now partly woodland and partly an orchard, with apple trees and one plum tree, with rough grass beneath. The area is described as a nursery on the 1901 Ordnance Survey map <4> and the Dorset Gardens Trust feel that this woodland/orchard area was very probably part of the original scheme. The trackway which now runs along the southern edge of this area is not shown on the 1901 map.

An ornamental cast iron pump head, black with a white shell-shaped niche at the top, is now used as a splash back for a cold water tap, is fixed to one of the buildings. To the west of the building there is small gravelled area with a roughly rectangular concrete pond in the centre. The Dorset Gardens Trust believe this to be a relatively modern addition and not part of the original scheme. The rectangular pond is surrounded by six staddle stones and there is a small shrubbery border against the building.

Setting: The gardens at Springhead are situated at the head of Collyer’s Brook which, as the name indicates, rises from a spring at the eastern end of the garden. The gardens sit on either side of the brook, which is held to form a pond, in a small valley with limited potential for views of hills to the south. The gardens are self-contained and clearly not designed to take in external vistas.

Context: The design of the garden at Springhead is regarded as being heavily influenced (albeit without any direct involvement) by Brenda Colvin. She had a powerful effect on garden style, and the garden at Springhead reflects trends developing at the time of its creation: it is reliant on planting for its effect, with no hard landscaping (beyond that provided by the site itself), taking its form from, and accommodating itself particularly well to, its setting.

Significance: Springhead is generally regarded as a successful garden in the style of Brenda Colvin. The garden has been maintained in its original style, with very few alterations and additions. The Dorset Gardens Trust are not aware of any other garden in the same style, in Dorset or elsewhere. Additional significance comes from the association with the Gardiners and their movement.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1 (Monograph). SDO146.

<2> Ordnance Survey, 1900, Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, epoch two (Map). SDO11594.

<3> Mowl, T, 2003, Historic Gardens of Dorset (Monograph). SDO12480.

‘… Water makes its first impact on the lane up from the village, a strong, clear stream running on the right but, on the turn into the mill yard, it has mysteriously vanished. There is just the yard, the substantial white-washed range of the mill blocking out the valley, and at right-angles to it the old miller’s house. Behind single-storey ranges on the lower side of the courtyard are the organic herb gardens, with bed after bed of echinacea, set up by Neal’s Yard in 1995 to take advantage of the extreme purity of the chalk-filtered water running a hundred yards from its source. … Springhead’s garden launches itself with a surprise vista … you climb up into it … Steps lead under an archway between mill and its mill house into a sudden roar of water pouring down into a chasm to turn unseen machinery. A few steps more and the long mill pond is at eye level, with all the inescapable Monet-esque associations. The narrow valley of the garden opens out, wooded to the left and at the water’s head, open fields to the right. And that, in a sense, is Springhead: the roar of the water, the water lilies and water weeds, the woods and the feeling of enclosure…. All that Squire seems to have done was to slightly tame its rusticity by revetting the upper banks, where the spring heads pour out from sand under chalk, and by planting an orchard above the springs. … Squire realised his good fortune in this charmed topography, and gardened simply to emphasise the bucolic composition.’

<4> Ordnance Survey, 1923-33, Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, epoch three (Map). SDO11595.

<5> Ordnance Survey, 1900, Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, epoch two (Map). SDO11594.

<6> GetMapping, 2014, Digital vertical aerial photographs (Aerial Photograph). SDO14101.

Record last edited

Aug 22 2024 8:07PM