Summary

A walled kitchen garden built for the Champernowne family of Dartington Hall, probably in the early 19th century. Constructed from local rubble stone, it features a long south-facing wall that would have helped to ripen the fruit grown in the garden. There is little ornamentation to this functional structure, and much of its interest lies in its historic role in producing food for the table of nearby medieval Dartington Hall. It remains an unusual survival, with an associated listed former gardener’s cottage nearby set within a Registered Park and Garden.

Description

A walled kitchen garden of probable early C19 date.

MATERIALS: constructed of local limestone rubble with coping stones and dressed stone to the door architraves.

DESCRIPTION: rectangular on plan and constructed on a north-east/ south-west orientation. The walls are approximately three metres tall. There are slender coping stones to some lengths of the walls, along with some cement repairs. The doorways, with stone arches and jambs, are located to the centre of the north and south walls, and to the west corner; all have timber plank doors.

History

At the centre of the Dartington Hall Estate are the surviving parts of the great C14 medieval house (listed Grade I, wider area scheduled), which was almost derelict by the time it was purchased by Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst in 1925 from the Champernowne family, who had owned the estate since 1559. The Elmhirsts set about using their substantial wealth to renovate Dartington Hall, beginning The Dartington Experiment, an ambitious programme of rural regeneration based on modern methods of agriculture and forestry, progressive education, arts and literature. Under their patronage, Dartington became a magnet for émigré artists, craftspeople, thinkers, musicians, dancers and actors during the interwar period, and it developed into a vibrant cultural community and a centre of innovation and influence. The couple made Dartington their home for the rest of their lives.

The walled kitchen garden stands around 140m south-east of Dartington Hall, on a south-east facing slope below the Great Lawn and early-C20 Dance School. It likely dates to the early C19, during the ownership of the Champernownes. It is shown on the 1840 tithe map with an outer perimeter enclosure. By the time of the First Edition Ordnance Survey Map of 1880, the south-west section of the enclosure had been removed and a building erected (shown as a glasshouse on the Second Edition OS of 1904). Pathways had been laid out within the area, including one crossing the kitchen garden. The pathway shown across the middle section of the kitchen garden appears to relate to the opposing doorways in the north and south walls. By 1870, a house for the gardener (listed at Grade II as lodge about 200m south of Dartington Hall), had been built to the south.

By 1932, the School of Dance and Mime had been built immediately to the north. Possibly as part of these works, a retaining wall was built between the school and the southern half of the kitchen garden. By this time, additional glasshouses had been erected to the west, as well as within the garden itself. This arrangement is also depicted on the Ordnance Survey Map of 1954. The glasshouses to the west were removed in the later C20 and replaced with a garden, while those within the walled garden are C21 replacements. The walled garden was in use as a nursery stock ground in the late C20 and early C21. In 2025, a free-standing, oak-framed shelter has been built in the south-east corner.

Reasons for Listing

The walled garden, a kitchen garden of late C18 or early C19 date, some 140m south-east of Dartington Hall is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a well-preserved example of a walled kitchen garden featuring stone door arches and stone coping;
* the walls have undergone relatively minor repair and replacement since construction and survive remarkably intact, especially considering the garden’s continuous use since the early C19.

Historic interest:

* as a notable component in the historic evolution of Dartington Hall, dating from a key period in the estate’s development under the Champernowne family, during which walled gardens became increasingly common on English country house estates;
* for its later incorporation into the early and mid-C20 gardens at Dartington Hall, which reflect the ideals and aesthetics of the Elmhirsts and the influence of several highly-regarded designers and nurserymen of the era.

Group value:

* for its strong group value with Dartington Hall (Grade I) and the former gardener’s cottage (Grade II). The walled garden is prominently situated on the southern edge of the Grade II* Registered Park and Garden. These designated assets collectively enhance the historic interest of the walled garden, forming an important ensemble that illustrates the layered evolution of the Dartington Hall estate.

Recommended Books

• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets