Tylney Hall

It was such a lovely day that we decided to go and visit an NGS garden. There were a couple closer but we’d already visited them so we decided to drive the ten miles over to Tylney Hall.

It’s actually a hotel now and has been since 1984, though a Hall stood on the same spot from 1700 until the late 1800s when it was extensively changed. The gardens were also given a huge makeover in the early 20th century. The designer, Robert Weir Schultz (1860-1951), a keen Arts & Crafts guy, asked Gertrude Jekyll to lend a hand, which she did.

Prior to this, the entire house was remodelled by Seldon Wornum (1847-1910), an architect from London, for Sir Lionel Philips. Seldon also laid out the Italian terrace garden. The whole place is pretty amazing and the sort of place the wealthy go to recuperate from counting all their money. There’s even a golf course.

The park, for it isn’t really a garden being 44 acres, is lovely and tranquil with lakes and woods and reeds and long lawns. But it wasn’t always so. The garden was doing pretty well up to 1946 but then the Hall was sold to Brent Council and became a school for children with special needs. The garden was sadly neglected and it grew like a crazy thing, swallowing up any design.

Fast forward to 1984 and Brent Council, clearly after a few quick squiddlies, sold the place to Celebrated Country Hotels who have worked tirelessly to get it back to scratch…in order to hire the place out at exorbitant rates. It is beautiful. And it even had a tree for me to climb. Mirinda thought it would be fun to show you how I managed it.

How to climb a tree

If you’d like to see the rest of my photos of the garden, they are here.