A world within a world

Revealing the history of this breathtaking 18th-century landscape, with its views out to sea, informed the garden’s latest reincarnation, says George Plumptre

- George Plumptre

IT’S like going to Narnia’ is how garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith described his first visit to Encombe, hidden away on the coast of Dorset’s Isle of Purbeck. The combination of complete seclusion and a breathtaking natural setting have for centuries given Encombe a fabled reputation that successive owners have embellished, not least James and Arabella Gaggero, who bought the estate in 2009—and became only the sixth family to own the property in 1,100 years.

The estate goes back to 948, when it was given to the Abbess of Shaftesbury by King Eadred. It was dissolved by Henry VIII and eventually passed into the hands of the Culliford family. In 1734, the story of modern Encombe began, when the estate was bought by George Pitt. He gave the property to his son John, who pulled down the existing house and replaced it with a new one of his own Classical design, which survives today. Built of local Purbeck ashlar, it was much larger than its predecessor, with a central block and a wing off each corner.

For advice on creating the landscape garden setting for his new home, Pitt turned to his cousin William, who would become far better known for his political exploits and national leadership, which brought him the Earldom of Chatham. As a young man, William had acquired a keen interest in landscape gardening as the protégé of Lord Cobham (whose niece Hester he would later marry), when Cobham was developing Stowe into the most influential 18th-century landscape garden in England. His cousin’s estate gave William a chance to demonstrate his landscaping skills.