A play on contrasts

The Old Rectory, Litton Cheney, Dorset With the help of Arne Maynard, the many and varying elements of this four-acre garden, once the home of engraver Reynolds Stone, have been beautifully drawn together.

- Christopher Stocks

ONLY a couple of miles inland from Chesil Beach, Litton Cheney tucks into the southern slopes of the high escarpment that hangs above the verdant valley of the River Bride. It’s a classic Dorset village, with its thatched cottages, spreading oak trees, gurgling streams and narrow lanes. At the bottom is the pub and right at the top is the 14th-century church. Immediately below, its roof on a level with the daisies in the churchyard, is a classic Georgian rectory, complete with latticework porch and a thatched summerhouse off to one side. The house, built in about 1780, perches on a long, narrow shelf cut into the side of the hill, which rises steeply above it on one side and falls away just as steeply on the other. The thickly wooded area below the house has a wild, romantic atmosphere, animated by crystal-clear springs that burst from fern fringed hollows in the hillside and rush down narrow gullies into shady pools below.

From 1953 to 1979, the Old Rectory was the home of the engraver Reynolds Stone and his photographer wife, Janet, who between them welcomed many of the leading literary and artistic figures of their day, from Iris Murdoch and Kenneth Clark to Joyce Grenfell and Benjamin Britten. Since 2009, it has been owned by Richard and Emily Cave, who have refurbished the house and, with the help of Arne Maynard, considerably smartened up the four acres of woods and gardens that surround it.