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In a quiet corner of rural Dorset, Jasper Conran’s 17th-century house is surrounded by an informal, flower-filled garden that reflects the designer’s predilection for constantly evolving and creative planting
In the gentle mizzle of a June dawn, the vibrant borders in Jasper Conran’s garden stand out ethereally against an indistinct, soft-focus backdrop. As the sun comes up and the mist lifts, glimpses of the surrounding countryside are revealed. This is the idyllic pastoral landscape that Thomas Hardy described in Tess of the d’Urbervilles, ‘an engirdled and secluded region’ that remains unspoilt and intensely beautiful. In this setting, Bettiscombe Manor seems totally at home. Lying at the end of an unassuming track, the time-weathered, modestly proportioned manor house is cradled by the landscape with views south toward the sea. Built in 1620 and then remodelled in 1695, it has remained largely unchanged since the end of the 17th century and is, in Jasper’s words, ‘the most uncompromised house I have ever owned’.
When he bought Bettiscombe and its 70 acres in 2016, Jasper was already familiar with the property. ‘My stepmother Caroline owned it for 30 years. She took me out for dinner to tell me she was selling it and, by the end of the evening, we had come to an agreement. I feel as if I have come home,’ he says. Like the house, the garden is relatively modest in scale with an unsophisticated charm and gentle intimacy. Informal steps cushioned by self-seeded erigeron and alchemilla lead up to a soft grassy terrace in front of the house. At the rear of the house, a secluded walled garden is surrounded on three sides by deep borders full of Jasper’s favourite flowers. At the front, the most delightful flower and herb garden is contained in a simple quadrangle of beds, like an illuminated manuscript. A new kitchen garden with neat raised beds is surrounded by characterful outbuildings, including open barns and an old cider house. An orchard and a sloping flower meadow, as well as a picturesque pond, were all existing features that needed little alteration.
GALLERY
‘The garden here is about building the picture slowly and looking at the details – it’s an evolutionary process,’ says Jasper. ‘There is no grand scheme: it is all about what works with the surrounding landscape. It has to have a gentleness, it has to work with nature. If anything, I have made the garden less formal to connect it more to the landscape. There mustn’t be anything to interrupt the flow.’ Large box balls anchor the corners of the cottage-garden borders at the front of the house, but this is as formal as it gets. By June, these squares of fertile brown earth are filled with a glorious tangled mass of colour, with alliums, roses, lilies, foxgloves and other cottage-garden plants rising up from a froth of lime green Alchemilla mollis and Euphorbia polychroma. Herbs and fruit bushes are also woven into the delicious tapestry, while sweet peas are trained up rustic hazel obelisks.
Continued below.
www.houseandgarden.co.uk
In the gentle mizzle of a June dawn, the vibrant borders in Jasper Conran’s garden stand out ethereally against an indistinct, soft-focus backdrop. As the sun comes up and the mist lifts, glimpses of the surrounding countryside are revealed. This is the idyllic pastoral landscape that Thomas Hardy described in Tess of the d’Urbervilles, ‘an engirdled and secluded region’ that remains unspoilt and intensely beautiful. In this setting, Bettiscombe Manor seems totally at home. Lying at the end of an unassuming track, the time-weathered, modestly proportioned manor house is cradled by the landscape with views south toward the sea. Built in 1620 and then remodelled in 1695, it has remained largely unchanged since the end of the 17th century and is, in Jasper’s words, ‘the most uncompromised house I have ever owned’.
When he bought Bettiscombe and its 70 acres in 2016, Jasper was already familiar with the property. ‘My stepmother Caroline owned it for 30 years. She took me out for dinner to tell me she was selling it and, by the end of the evening, we had come to an agreement. I feel as if I have come home,’ he says. Like the house, the garden is relatively modest in scale with an unsophisticated charm and gentle intimacy. Informal steps cushioned by self-seeded erigeron and alchemilla lead up to a soft grassy terrace in front of the house. At the rear of the house, a secluded walled garden is surrounded on three sides by deep borders full of Jasper’s favourite flowers. At the front, the most delightful flower and herb garden is contained in a simple quadrangle of beds, like an illuminated manuscript. A new kitchen garden with neat raised beds is surrounded by characterful outbuildings, including open barns and an old cider house. An orchard and a sloping flower meadow, as well as a picturesque pond, were all existing features that needed little alteration.
GALLERY
‘The garden here is about building the picture slowly and looking at the details – it’s an evolutionary process,’ says Jasper. ‘There is no grand scheme: it is all about what works with the surrounding landscape. It has to have a gentleness, it has to work with nature. If anything, I have made the garden less formal to connect it more to the landscape. There mustn’t be anything to interrupt the flow.’ Large box balls anchor the corners of the cottage-garden borders at the front of the house, but this is as formal as it gets. By June, these squares of fertile brown earth are filled with a glorious tangled mass of colour, with alliums, roses, lilies, foxgloves and other cottage-garden plants rising up from a froth of lime green Alchemilla mollis and Euphorbia polychroma. Herbs and fruit bushes are also woven into the delicious tapestry, while sweet peas are trained up rustic hazel obelisks.
Continued below.
Jasper Conran's Dorset garden is a constantly evolving, flower-filled delight
In a quiet corner of rural Dorset, Jasper Conran’s 17th-century house is surrounded by an informal, flower-filled garden that reflects the designer’s predilection for constantly evolving and creative planting
