A quintessential English garden in the Surrey Hills run by the fourth generation of the same family
The quiet beauty of Vann, a country house and garden in the Surrey Hills, is never more evident than in the spring, when a delicate tapestry of naturalised bulbs, hellebores and woodland wildflowers carpets the ground, accompanied by the abundant blossom and the flowering shrubs that frame the views across the lawns, over the water garden and into the woods of the five-acre garden. With a history of habitation stretching back to the 12th century and with the oldest part of the house dating from the early 16th century, this is a place of beautiful tranquillity, harmoniously settled in its landscape. It is no wonder visitors often comment that it is a quintessential English garden.
Since the early 20th century, Vann has been in the care of the Caroe family, with the fourth generation now taking on the task of looking after the house and its Grade II*-listed garden. Brother and sister Oliver and Emily Caroe are the great-grandchildren of Arts and Crafts architect William Douglas Caroe and his wife Grace, who leased and then bought Vann as a place in the country where they could hold parties. WD, as he was known, doubled the size of the property in the ‘new old house’ style, where something treasured and precious is turned into something modern, while still retaining its historic spirit.
Simultaneously, the garden was laid out, with WD designing the hard landscaping. This includes the substantial pergola built from local Bargate stone that leads from the house to the pond, and the walls and paths that divide the garden into a series of separate areas, each distinct from the other. The original old garden at the front of the house has cottage- garden elements, while deep borders of shrubs and ornamental trees edge the lawns where WD and Grace often entertained guests. Topiary yew and hedges were used to define different parts of the garden, notably enclosing and ornamenting the formal yew walk.
Significantly, the Caroes enlisted the help of their neighbour Gertrude Jekyll to design and plant the water garden. The field pond was dammed to create the waterfall that descends into the wooded valley, where more ponds are crossed by bridges and stone-flagged paths leading onward to a second waterfall where the stream then disappears into the woodland beyond. Gertrude supplied hundreds of plants from her own Surrey home, Munstead Wood, to furnish the banks, including 70 Fritillaria meleagris, which are the foundation population of the many thousands that now grow in the garden.
‘Since then, the garden has been through three or four cycles of ebbs and flows,’ says Oliver. ‘Huge energy created it and it is Gertrude’s contribution that is really material.’ During the First World War, Vann was unoccupied for nearly two years, after which WD’s interests moved overseas and Grace was left to run things without the financial means to do so. After his death, she lived out her days at Vann fairly reclusively, and both the house and garden went downhill. Their younger son Alban, the grandfather of Oliver and Emily, then tried to establish Vann as a market garden. Greenhouses were erected and orchards planted for commercial crops to earn enough to cover the cost of the gardener. Daffodils were grown to send to the flower market at Covent Garden and these commercial activities inevitably changed the nature of the garden.
‘When my father, Martin, inherited Vann, the house hadn’t been lived in full time for years,’ explains Oliver. ‘Parts of the garden had reverted to wilderness. He was the visionary in remaking the garden and my mother, Mary, made it happen by sometimes working up to 15 hours a day, alongside raising five children and working as a doctor. They were the first generation of Caroes to make this a family home. As children, we had to create our own entertainment and the only rule was that we never walked on the flowerbeds.’ Martin died aged 66, after which Mary tended the garden for 20 years ‘head down, bottom up, weeding obsessively’, according to Oliver, until
her death from Covid, aged 81, in April 2020.
Neither Oliver nor Emily are involved in the practical day-to-day running of Vann’s garden, but with visionary and energetic guidance from current head gardener Gordon Keddie, and the help of his small team and volunteers, they are taking decisions that will preserve the original framework, while allowing it to be managed in a modern and more sustainable way. Perfection is neither sought nor desired, as they allot a fixed number of hours to each area. It is now gardened organically; grass is allowed to grow long in the orchards and wildflowers that attract beneficial insects are welcomed.
The family have found Gordon’s guidance subtle and clear-sighted, and now have a real sense of how the garden has evolved over time. For example, when pruning old shrubs, the gardeners can look in and see where a previous gardener pruned it 50 or even 100 years ago. ‘These are lovely clues to its history,’ Oliver says. He admits they now need a more stringent garden management plan to take it into the future. ‘I rather eschewed such a plan because, as soon as you systemise, something is lost,’ he notes. Nevertheless, there are things they must consider. ‘The weather is changing and ash dieback may kill our magnificent ash. We have box moth and old box bushes that are key structural elements may not survive. Alternatives will have to be found. There’s no rigid way forward.’ But it is not all doom and gloom. With the garden now entirely managed to encourage biodiversity, they have recently been told that the pond is a habitat for rare dragonflies and damselflies.
‘We’re at a stage of transition,’ Oliver adds. ‘We don’t want to change the main structures – the pond, the water gardens, the vistas – and we can’t, because it’s a registered park and garden. We are loosening up while retaining the bones.’ In a similar way to their great-grandfather who created his ‘new old house’, they are making a new old garden from their treasured inheritance. It is their hope and intention that in 10 or even 50 years’ time, Vann will still be a beautiful and tranquil place.
Vann is open in spring and early summer: vanngarden.co.uk
