EVERYONE knows that a well-designed extension can add value to your home, but how many people stop to think that a gorgeous garden can do the same? The price difference between a country house with a beautiful garden and one that is neglected can be dramatic. And not only is an attractive, well-maintained garden easier on the eye, it’s easier to sell.
“If you have a lovely £3 million house but it has a grotty garden, it is going to seriously affect the value — by as much as 15 to 20 per cent,” says Henry Holland-Hibbert, director of the estate agent Lane Fox’s country house department. “The worst thing is where half the garden has been sold off and built on. That becomes a blight on the property.” That said, you should not expect to recoup all the money you spend on a garden: “There is a law of diminishing returns. If you have a house worth £1 million and you spend £300,000 on the garden, you cannot expect it to be worth £1.3 million. The value is in the bricks and mortar.”
Big is by no means always beautiful when it comes to the gardens of country properties, however. “Once you get to three or four acres of garden, you spend every Friday night and Saturday morning mowing so that you can enjoy the rest of the weekend. Either that or you have to pay someone to do it,” Holland-Hibbert says.
Not that the prospect of hard work deterred Tom Hart Dyke when he turned a neglected two-acre walled garden at his family’s ancestral home in Kent into an award-winning tourist attraction. He came up with the idea for his World Garden of Plants during the nine months he spent as a captive of guerrillas in the Colombian jungle, where he had been on a plant-hunting expedition. The plan took root, he says, when he was threatened with execution: “My guards kicked down the door on June 16, 2000, my sister’s birthday, and said: ‘You’ve got five hours, mate.’ I started scribbling in my diary, drawing the shapes of my garden. It took an AK47 to focus my mind. It was: four walls, start drawing. The whole garden started with that threat. Five hours later the guards came back and we had iguana and armadillo for supper as usual; there was no more mention of being shot.”
The World Garden of Plants that is now taking shape at Lullingstone Castle has not just helped to add value to the house but is saving it from having to be sold. The garden has so far cost £250,000, including a £160,000 bank loan, to create, but the huge increase in paying visitors is helping to secure the estate’s long-term future.
The garden, which was designed by Adam Bailey, a local landscape architect, is a threedimensional map of the world with countries displaying their native plants. “England” is planted with rosebay willowherb, and “South Africa” with red hot pokers, for example.
The shifting fortunes of the Hart Dyke family have made riveting television in Save Lullingstone Castle, the recent BBC Two series, which drew two million viewers. Tom’s father, Guy Hart Dyke, the castle’s owner, describes it as “a sort of sitcom really”. His family are seen struggling with bureaucracy, a warring neighbour and a dwindling bank balance to put the estate back on the right footing. As Guy says with remarkable sang-froid: “This garden is the moneymaker, or destroyer, of Lullingstone Castle.”
As the credits roll on the final episode, viewers are left wondering whether the family has done enough to fend off penury. The answer, happily, is that they have. “We are only halfway through the season and have already had more visitors than we had the whole of last year,” says Guy, his delight self-evident. “We’ve just passed the 10,000 mark and are on course for 20,000. Last year we had just over 9,000 visitors.”
Guy credits the creation of the garden with the improvement in revenue. “It has become a magnet for visitors— they will save the house. We have 15 years to pay off the loan and are hopeful of getting there early. Things are very encouraging indeed.” And if the plan fails? “We would have to put the house on the market, which would be a pity after 500 years,” he says.
Lullingstone, which nestles in 120 acres of rolling countryside near Sevenoaks, was built in the 15th century and substantially rebuilt in the 18th century by Sir Percyval Hart in honour of Queen Anne, who was a frequent guest: visitors to the castle can still see her bedroom. In its heyday in 1802 the estate had 8,000 acres; much of it was sold off in Victorian times by Sir William Hart Dyke, Guy’s grandfather. “If he wanted to have a shooting party for his friends, he’d simply sell off a cottage,” Guy says.
He adds: “The rules of lawn tennis were supposed to have been drawn up here by a small committee, including my grandfather and Edward VII. They re-enacted the occasion on the lawn outside with ladies in hooped skirts, using a ladder stretched over two barrels for a net.”
He and his wife, Sarah, now live in a tiny flat within the building: its living room was formerly a cloakroom for the main house. In 1881 there were 18 live-in staff plus dailies; the sole member of staff now is a part-time cleaner who works for four hours a week in summer. Sarah does the dusting with a 20ft extendable duster reminiscent of Ken Dodd’s tickle stick, and Guy mans the entrance desk. Tickets are sold from a small wooden shed by the 15th-century gatehouse. It is all endearingly low-key, with not a scrap of commercialism in sight.
The interior of the house, however, needs redecorating, and the window frames need substantial repair. “None of the upstairs windows opens and there is plenty of rot,” says Sarah. “I find that my lovely strong furniture polish knocks woodworm on the head.”
The family is keen to restore two Victorian glasshouses in the walled garden, as well as an ice house and Queen Anne bath house in the grounds, but lacks the cash. “We are trying to find sponsors to have them done,” says Guy.
Guy’s father split the house into flats in the 1960s: there are now five tenancies in the house, two in the gatehouse, and two in the old laundry behind the house. The south wing of the house is under offer for about £1 million; it is owned by Trevor Edwards, who is seen on screen railing against the “feudal” behaviour of the Hart Dyke family. More explosive antics are to come in the second series, which is due to be broadcast in the autumn.
Tom’s obsession with plants started at the age of 3, when his grandmother, Mary Hart Dyke, nicknamed Crac, gave him some carrot seeds and a trowel. He never looked back, once counting every orchid (more than 42,000) on Lullingstone golf course over a week. His fascination with plants was such that when asked by the headmaster of Stowe if he had any questions after his admission interview, he replied: “Yes. Do you have any fly orchids?” Tom adds: “He just stared at me, and I never went to Stowe.”
His enthusiasm is infectious. Tom, who cannot sit still for a minute, says: “We’ve put in 5,500 new plants this year. Dad is very keen to get the loan out of the way while being careful to have a lot of improvements in the garden.”
Among his growing band of volunteers is “Granny”, 91, who maintains the long herbaceous border outside the walled garden. Beaming with pride, Mary says: “I think he is amazing. You might say I am prejudiced, but people come and help him for nothing and give him plants for his garden. It’s wonderful.”
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