Rhododendron heaven

The garden at Ramster, near Chiddingfold, Surrey The home of Mr and Mrs Paul Gunn and Mr and Mrs Malcolm Glaister In its centenary year, Ramster’s reputation continues to grow–together with its magnificent woodland garden, reveals Charles Quest-Ritson

- Charles Quest-Ritson

RAMSTER is a masterpiece of woodland gardening, carefully designed and planted to appear as natural as possible. It reaches the peak of its loveliness in May, but is truly an all-seasons garden, one of the best in southern England.

The story begins in 1900, when a Mr Waechter (later Sir Harry) bought a farm named Rams Nest, near Chiddingfold in Surrey, with a view to what we would now call gentrifying it. The Arts and Crafts Movement was then at its height. Waechter re-modelled the house in the Surrey vernacular celebrated by Gertrude Jekyll, and, at the same time, started to plant a woodland garden among the native oak-trees. Jekyll’s recent book Wood & Garden (1899) provided the inspiration and the method.

A near neighbour of Rams Nest was Gauntlett’s Nursery, famous in its day for stocking all the desirable novelties coming out of China and Japan. Sir Harry employed Gauntlett to supply many of the plants for his garden, including Japanese maples (forms of Acer palmatum, now very substantial plants), venerable evergreen azaleas and tall bamboos, for a stylised Japanese garden with traditional stone lanterns and Zen cranes, symbols of longevity. All are still important elements of the garden today.