POV: You’ve inherited an historic English hall with two moats and incredible gardens – now what?

Once home to garden designer Xa Tollemache, Helmingham Hall is now under the care of a new generation of Tollemaches and is as glorious as ever, especially in winter when its bones are laid bare. Words: Chris Young, Photographs: Richard Bloom

Published: Tuesday, 24 December 2024 at 07:00 AM

There’s no doubt that taking over the responsibility for an established garden is a daunting task, but it’s especially so if you have 500 years of familial predecessors looking down on you.

Add to this the fact that your mother-in-law is the well-respected garden designer Xa Tollemache – who has made this one of the most interesting gardens in England – and you’d forgive Sophie Tollemache if she felt somewhat overwhelmed. “But there’s been such a gentle transition from Xa and my father-in-law Tim to me and my husband Ed, that I’m just really excited about the future of this place,” she says.

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For Ed and Sophie are the current incumbents (20th generation) of Helmingham Hall in Suffolk. They left London in 2017 and moved to the family home, where they now bring up their three children. It is iconic, unique and totally captivating – a house surrounded by a 20m-wide moat, it oozes history and beauty. “Ed’s parents moved here in 1975,” says Sophie, “and established Helmingham as a thriving garden and events venue, as well as the wider estate business. It was Xa who learned her garden design craft here and used the gardens as her classroom.”

Early morning mist atmospherically rises from one of Helmingham’s two moats. This one also has drawbridges, both of which are raised every night, as they have been for hundreds of years. ©Richard Bloom – © Richard Bloom

And what a classroom to learn in: a moated (yes, moated) one-acre walled garden to the west that grows fruit, vegetables and flowers; wildflower meadows; deer park; trees and woods; and to the east, added in 1982, the Herb and Knot Garden, with the Rose Garden. “Xa, along with former head gardener Roy Balaam, did so much in their time here,” says Sophie. “Now I’m responsible for the gardens, I want to look at the impact our increasingly variable climate is having on Helmingham, so we need to take a modern, sustainable approach to the beautiful gardens that Xa created.”

Helmingham is iconic, unique and totally captivating – a house surrounded by a 20m-wide moat, it oozes history and beauty.

Walled garden in winter — A pair of tightly clipped bookend yews create a perfect winter outline in the Walled Garden. Expertly topiarised by one of the gardeners, Chris Reeve, these add structure throughout winter. ©Richard Bloom

The current head gardener, Brendan Arundel, was appointed in 2021 and receives much praise from Sophie. Responsible for three full-time and one part-time gardeners, and several volunteers, Brendan is the hands-on force driving the daily working of the garden.

Walled garden with decorative hedges — Created in 1978, the Parterre features low planting of box hedging infilled with Santolina chamaecyparissus. In summer the round bed surrounding one of two large stone urns is planted with wallflowers and white cosmos. ©Richard Bloom

Yet what underpins all eight-and-a-half acres of domestic garden are great ‘bones’ – structure, proportion and scale, all of which are accentuated at this time of year. Years of owning the same bit of land, years of gardening, and years of tweaking, mean that the overall layout is superb. Yew hedging (organic shapes and straight lines), trees (recently planted and historic), water, walls, sculpture and hard landscaping ensure that while there may be fewer flowers in winter, beautiful structures and the patina of age are as enjoyable.

Walled garden and house in mist — The one-acre Walled Garden once provided produce for the whole village and wider community. Today it still supplies the house, café and events, although some of the productive beds have now been given over to cut flowers, wildflower meadows and ornamental planting. ©Richard Bloom

“There’s a very different character in winter,” says Sophie. “It’s completely exquisite when t’s still and crisp. Even though we get some brutal easterly winds, there is a real magic to this place.”

Years of owning the same bit of land, years of gardening, and years of tweaking, mean that the overall layout is superb.

For Sophie, much of the winter beauty is the collection of trees, both in the immediate garden but also in the wider parkland too. Cedar trees, dotted around, stand majestically in the cold air, as do a range of unusual oaks, huge horse chestnuts and even a substantial eucalyptus. The Woodland Garden (more a fascinating arboretum than wood) houses glades of Malus and Prunus, each offering interest of habit or bark. The informal symmetry of the Apple Walk, with its 40 well-tended fruit trees and their arching branches, makes an attractive feature against a winter sky.

But of course it’s the hedging that really gives definition to a winter visit at Helmingham. Around the Walled Garden’s moat, countless Taxus baccata domes are trimmed for a clear outline and interesting form.

What underpins all of the garden are great ‘bones’ – structure, proportion and scale, all of which are accentuated at this time of year.

On the other side of the house, in the Herb and Knot Garden, low-growing box plants form two patterns: one is of the Tollemache fret pattern; the other is entwined with the letters T and A for Ed’s parents. On a crisp winter’s day, the outline of the patterns is accentuated and the effect more startling than when surrounded by summer flowers.

As is inevitable nowadays, the issue of box blight or box-tree moth comes up and Sophie gives a knowing look. “We do have the caterpillar,” she says, “but we take a pragmatic approach and try to look after the box as well as we can.”

Ancient bridge over steam and house — An ancient bridge links the Walled Garden to the Apple Walk. Helmingham Hall is unusual in having moats around both the hall itself and the productive garden – the latter to protect crops from animals (and, possibly, thieves). ©Richard Bloom

Of course, the architecture of Helmingham benefits the whole experience, with the house “being the nucleus of the garden”, according to Sophie. But surely, ultimately, it’s the moats that add to the experience? The physical act of walking over one of the bridges or drawbridges makes you look down and visually connect with the void beneath.

At other times it’s the way a simple rising mist – or striking calmness – emanates around the house. It’s certainly not miserable or threatening; rather it’s all part of the theatre of this spectacular site in this most frigid of seasons.

There’s a very different character in winter. It’s completely exquisite when it’s still and crisp. There is a real magic to this place.

There is theatre in abundance with topiary and statuary. “The Topiary Border in the Walled Garden has some really fun Buxus shapes in it,” Sophie explains. Expertly topiarised by gardener Chris Reeve, the snails or snowmen make for a dash of humour in the winter light. In a great gardening nod, Xa even created one topiary called ‘Gertrude Jekyll’s boot’.

Apple trees — The Apple Walk, on the northern flank of the Walled Garden, edges the moat. There are more than 40 apple trees, made up of several cultivars including ‘Worcester Pearmain’, ‘Egremont Russet’ and ‘Lord Derby’. ©Richard Bloom

Statuary is used around the garden too – from stone eagles on a corner of the Walled Garden to a pair of cast-iron statues of Pegasus (the winged horse of Greek mythology) at its entrance to the to a modern DNA helix sculpture by Pete Moorhouse. These sculptures are not everywhere – and all the better for it. Their sporadic but considered inclusion ensures that when you do come across them, they feel special.

In brief

Name Helmingham Hall.
What Private historical garden open to the public.
Where Suffolk. Size Eight-and-a-half acre garden, including Walled Garden and Rose Garden, set within a 5,500-acre estate.
Soil Alkaline, heavy clay.
Climate Cold and strong easterly winds; many parts of the walled or hedged gardens are very sheltered. Normally a dry climate, with an average annual rainfall of below 700m.
Hardiness zone USDA 8b.

Useful information:

Address Helmingham Hall, Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 6EF. Tel 01473 890799.
Web helmingham.com Open May – September. This year’s Illuminated Garden Trail runs
until 18 December. See website for details, and for all opening times and ticket prices.