Gertrude Jekyll (pronounced jee-kill) was 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, harmonious colour palettes and use of traditional crafts remain the quintessential essence of English style.
You may have visited a Jekyll garden or one inspired by Jekyll’s work and have not even known.
Jekyll’s 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 age 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.
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 initially 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 laid out new gardens, attracting the attention of William Robinson, editor of ‘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.
Jekyll’s influence
After being diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition (myopia) in 1891 at 50, Jekyll gave up painting and needlework and focused on garden design. She initiated an informal partnership with a young architect, Edwin Lutyens, who was 26 years her junior. Munstead Wood (Grade I listed), Jekyll’s house, was an early collaboration.
Jekyll strongly influenced Lutyens’ style, and she introduced him to many of his early clients. Lutyens and Jekyll collaborated on around 100 gardens; a Lutyens house with a Jekyll garden became the ‘must-have’ of the cultured English Edwardian.
32 of Jekyll’s gardens are protected in the ‘Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest’, including those she carried out in partnership with Lutyens.
The small walled garden at Lindisfarne Castle (Grade II registered) is an excellent example of Jekyll’s work: large herbaceous beds with drifts of flowering plants moving from cold whites and blues 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 by emulating the work of Turner in her youth. The wildflowers on the cliffs below the castle include the descendants of plants 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 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:
Further reading
- Registered Parks and Gardens
- Women celebrated by Registered Parks and Gardens
- The Official Website of the Jekyll Estate
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.