Gertrude Jekyll’s prolific writing of books and articles saw her become perhaps the most influential Arts & Crafts garden designer of the early 20th century.
Having designed around 400 gardens in the UK, Europe and America, Jekyll’s planting schemes, their harmonious colour palettes and use of traditional crafts, remain the quintessential essence of English-style. You may have visited a Jekyll garden, or a garden inspired by Jekyll’s work, and not even known.
Life and style
Born 29 November 1843, the fifth of seven children, Jekyll was home educated before joining the Kensington School of Art aged 17. A creative mind with a keen interest in crafts and colour; Jekyll was exhibiting at the Royal Academy of Arts by the age of 23 and in her circle of artistic friends, she knew the likes of Ruskin, GF Watts and William Morris.
By her early 30s, Jekyll’s extensive social network saw her advising on interior design – including the furnishings for the Duke of Westminster’s enormous new house, Eaton Hall, designed by Alfred Waterhouse and sadly demolished in the 1960s.
As an unmarried woman, Jekyll’s early career in fine art and craftwork – from embroidery to blacksmithing – broke Victorian social convention. She was also well travelled; visiting Algeria, Italy and the Aegean.
Pronunciation of Jekyll
Old Celtic surname pronounced ‘Jee-kill’ to rhyme with treacle.
Gertrude’s brother Herbert was a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It’s suggested that the title was originally intended as a play on words with the children’s game ‘Hide and Seek-all’, the Victorian name for Hide and Seek. The modern pronunciation of Jekyll (Jek-ill) is a product of 1940s Hollywood.
In 1877, Jekyll moved with her mother to a newly built property, Munstead House near Godalming in Surrey. Here she took charge of laying out new gardens, which attracted the attention of William Robinson; editor of journal The Garden, for which Jekyll became a contributor. Robinson, author of The Wild Garden (1870), was a leading proponent of naturalistic garden design in opposition to popular, highly formal, Victorian schemes.
Influence
After being diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition (myopia) in 1891 at the age of 50, Jekyll gave up painting and needlework and focused her energies on garden design. She struck up an informal partnership with a young architect, Edwin Lutyens, who was 26 years her junior. Munstead Wood (Grade I listed), Jekyll’s own house, was an early collaboration.
Lutyens’ style was strongly influenced by Jekyll, and she introduced him to many of his early clients. Lutyens & Jekyll collaborated on around 100 gardens; a Lutyens house with a Jekyll garden became the ‘must-have’ of the cultured English Edwardian.
Thirty-two of Jekyll’s gardens are protected in the ‘Register of Parks and Gardens of special historic interest’; including some of those she carried out in partnership with Lutyens.
The small walled garden at Lindisfarne Castle (Grade II registered) is a good example of Jekyll’s work: including large herbaceous beds with drifts of flowering plants moving from cold whites and blues through to warm oranges and reds and back again. It is said that Jekyll’s eye condition meant that she saw colours as blurs and approached her designs like a painting, influenced from emulating the work of Turner in her youth. The wild flowers on the cliffs below the castle include the descendants of plants that were spread by Jekyll firing seed from a shotgun.
The gardens at Hestercombe in Somerset (Grade I registered) are generally regarded as Jekyll’s most impressive work. The Great Plat (pictured) sees geometric-shaped panels of lawn meeting a central sundial; beds planted with gladioli and delphiniums and a stone flagged walk provide views across the gardens to the house.
Jekyll was the first woman to be awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour of the Royal Horticultural Society, the highest award for British horticulturists, in 1897.
She died in 1932 and her tombstone in Busbridge Churchyard, designed by Lutyens, is inscribed:
Gertrude Jekyll
Artist
Gardener
Craftswoman
Further reading
- Find out more about Registered Parks and Gardens
- Read more about the women celebrated by Registered Parks and Gardens
- Check out the official website of the Jekyll Estate
Contributed by Eric Branse-Instone at Historic England.
I’ve visited several of her gardens knowing that they were hers, and probably many more not knowing that. Wonderful stuff. Loved the garden at Lindisfarne.
For Jekyll fans, you might like to look at any of the four books I’ve written on Gertrude Jekyll, including Gertrude Jekyll at Munstead Wood (Pimpernel Press, 2015) and Gertrude Jekyll and the Country House Garden: From the Archives of Country Life (Aurum, 2011).
‘Jee-kill’ to rhyme with treacle – Love this! A great introduction to the wonderful Jekyll. There’s a feature on the Gertrude Jekyll Lindisfarne garden on my GardeningWays blog too if anyone wants a closer look.
Studying the gardens that Jekyll designed, inspired me as a student of Plants & Planting Design at Capel Manor many years ago. We owe so much to her natural ability to bring a garden to life using an unsurpassed colour palette. Her legacy lives on.