Hestercombe House

Hestercombe House is between West Monkton and Cheddon Fitzpaine in the Taunton Deane area in the south of the English county of Somerset. It is on the Quantock Hills which were England's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty being designated in 1956.{{cite web|url=http://www.thequantockhills.co.uk/resources/qtx_inter_panel_v3.pdf |title=Quantock Hills |publisher=Quantock Hills AONB |access-date=10 June 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714224249/http://www.thequantockhills.co.uk/resources/qtx_inter_panel_v3.pdf |archive-date=14 July 2014 }} The south facing gardens offer views of the Blackdown Hills.{{cite web|title=Hestercombe Gardens|url=http://www.swandown.net/hestercombe-gardens.html|publisher=Swandown|access-date=14 June 2014}}

In the 11th century Hestercombe was owned by Glastonbury Abbey. Sir John Meriet founded a chantry in the 14th century and in 1392 it passed to John La Ware by marriage and stayed in his family for almost four hundred years.{{National Heritage List for England |num=1000437 |desc=Hestercombe|access-date=3 April 2015}}

The current house is a Grade II* listed{{NHLE|desc=Hestercombe House |num=1060513 |access-date=25 April 2011 }} country house which was originally built in the 16th century for the Warre family. Sir Richard Warre (d. 1601) bequeathed it to his son Roger who married Elinor, daughter of Sir John Popham.{{sfn|Rice|2005|p=35}}

When their descendant Sir Francis Warre, Bt. died in 1718 he left the estate to his daughter, Margaret, who transferred it to her husband John Bampfylde (1691–1750). Following his death in 1750 it was inherited by the couple's son, Coplestone Warre Bampfylde, a landscape painter who developed pleasure grounds to the north of the house incorporating cascades, lakes and a series of ornamental structures.{{sfn|Hugo|1874|p=28}}

The house was enlarged and altered in the 18th century, but this work is no longer visible beneath the refronting and enlargement works carried out around 1875 for Edward Portman, 1st Viscount Portman, who had acquired it in 1873.{{cite web|title=Buildings|url=http://www.hestercombe.com/history/buildings|publisher=Hestercombe House|access-date=14 June 2014|archive-date=15 May 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140515005156/http://www.hestercombe.com/history/buildings|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|title=Hestercombe, Taunton, England|url=http://www.parksandgardens.org/places-and-people/site/1705/history|website=Parks & Gardens UK|publisher=Parks and Gardens Data Services Ltd|access-date=14 June 2014|archive-date=14 July 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714182513/http://www.parksandgardens.org/places-and-people/site/1705/history|url-status=dead}}

File:Geograph 3146482 Hestercombe Gardens - Barracks.jpg

During the early years of the Second World War, the house and gardens were used by the British Army as part of the headquarters for VIII Corps, which was formed to command the defence of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Bristol. The VIII Corps main headquarters was at nearby Pyrland Hall, and the rear headquarters established at Hestercombe House, with Personnel and Logistics staff. Hestercombe was the headquarters of the American army 398th General Service Engineer Regiment from July 1943 to April 1944. Eisenhower visited Hestercombe on 18 March 1944 to meet General Gerow and inspect the troops. The Engineers were joined by the 19th District Headquarters of the US Supply Services in July 1943, which stayed until July 1944.{{sfn|Wakefield|1994|p=101}}

Early on 28 March 1944, a few minutes after midnight, a Junkers Ju 88 crashed on the drive to the house after being shot down by cannon fire from a de Havilland Mosquito of No. 219 Squadron Royal Air Force. Hestercombe was the American 801 Hospital Centre after the Normandy landings until the end of the war.{{sfn|Wakefield|1994|p=101}} A total of 33 barrack huts (various Nissen huts, Romney huts and MOWB (Ministry of Works brick huts) were constructed at Hestercombe during the war. Many were demolished in the 1960s by the Crown Estate, and only one is left standing, in Rook Wood.{{cite web|title=Gardens|url=http://www.hestercombe.com/your-visit/gardens|publisher=Herstercombe House|access-date=14 June 2014}}

File:Hestercombe Detail.jpg beyond]]

The house remained in the Portman family until 1944 when it was accepted in lieu of death duties by the Crown Estate, however Mrs Portman remained at the house until her death in 1951. It was leased to the fire service in 1953.{{cite web|title=The restoration of the Formal Garden at Hestercombe 1973 to 1980 Part 1 – In the hands of the Fire Service|url=http://www.parksandgardens.org/further-reading/conservation-and-restoration/231-hestercombe/488-the-restoration-of-the-formal-garden-at-hestercombe-1973-to-1980-part-1|work=Parks and Gardens UK|publisher=Parks and Gardens Data Services|access-date=25 April 2011|archive-date=4 May 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140504121531/http://www.parksandgardens.org/further-reading/conservation-and-restoration/231-hestercombe/488-the-restoration-of-the-formal-garden-at-hestercombe-1973-to-1980-part-1|url-status=dead}} A visitor centre opened in the Victorian stables in 2005. Most of the cost of the conversion was funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.{{cite web|title=Hestercombe Gardens Trust Update |url=http://www.gardenhistorysociety.org/post/agenda/hestercombe-gardens-trust-update/ |publisher=Garden History Society |access-date=25 April 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001035751/http://www.gardenhistorysociety.org/post/agenda/hestercombe-gardens-trust-update/ |archive-date= 1 October 2011 }} The house was used as the Emergency Call Centre for the Somerset Area of Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service with a running cost in 2011 of £675,000 per year.{{cite web|title=Hestercombe House fire control could move to Exeter|url=http://www.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/news/somerset_news/9166300.Hestercome_House_fire_control_could_move_to_Exeter/?ref=rss|publisher=This is the westcountry|access-date=9 June 2014}} The fire service moved out in 2012 and restoration work was then undertaken.{{cite web|title=Philip White — Hestercombe's restoration man|url=http://www.countrygardener.co.uk/article/content/philip-white-hestercombe%E2%80%99s-restoration-man|publisher=Country Gardener|access-date=9 June 2014|archive-date=15 July 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140715023849/http://www.countrygardener.co.uk/article/content/philip-white-hestercombe%E2%80%99s-restoration-man|url-status=dead}}

The house today appears an assemblage of several architectural styles popular during the Victorian era. While the overall design and air could be described as Italianate, also present in the same entrance facade are examples of high Victorian Gothic, such as an Italianate seigneurial tower confused in design with a campanile tower. This tower complete with a glazed loggia is crowned by a French-style mansard roof with oversized chimneys masquerading as Renaissance ornament. The centrepiece of the same facade is a porte-cochère designed in a heavy neoclassical style.{{cite news|last1=Marsh|first1=Michael|title=Photos show history of Hestercombe House as summer handover nears|url=http://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/taunton_news/9571543.Photos_show_history_of_Hestercombe_House_as_summer_handover_nears/|access-date=9 June 2014|publisher=Somerset County Gazette|date=6 March 2012}}

In January 2025, Hestercombe House was the venue for an exhibition of photographs of the estate, its residents and visitors, from the 19th and 20th centuries.{{cite web |title=Uplifting photos of manor's history go on display |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c24nmg4qd5no |website=BBC News |access-date=25 January 2025}}

File:Geograph 2900300 Hestercombe Gardens - watermill.jpg

In the 18th century a watermill was installed and used to power a sawmill, grind corn and crush apples. There is some evidence that there has been a mill on the site since the late 14th century.{{cite web|title=Hestercombe Watermill |url=http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/mills/england/somerset/hestercombe/ |publisher=Mills archive |access-date=23 May 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714152718/http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/mills/england/somerset/hestercombe/ |archive-date=14 July 2014 |df=dmy-all }} The overshot waterwheel, which was {{convert|11|ft}} in diameter and {{convert|4|ft}} wide overall,{{cite web|title=Hestercombe House |url=http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~chipley/sias/notes%20and%20news.html |work=Bulletin 111 – News and Notes |publisher=Somerset Industrial Archaeological Society |access-date=23 May 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140504110924/http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~chipley/sias/notes%20and%20news.html |archive-date=4 May 2014 |df=dmy-all }} was replaced in 1895,{{cite web|title=Restoration at Hestercombe|url=http://www.quantockeco.org.uk/case-studies/restoration-at-hestercombe/|publisher=Quantock Eco|access-date=23 May 2013|archive-date=5 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105194848/http://www.quantockeco.org.uk/case-studies/restoration-at-hestercombe/|url-status=dead}} when the attached barn and workshops were expanded. and generated electricity for the estate, which was stored in glass batteries. The waterwheel had deteriorated by the 1980s.{{National Heritage List for England |num=1308064 |desc=Barn complex including pumping house and waterwheel|access-date=3 April 2015}}

From the 1950s until 2009 the buildings were used as a barn for animals and agricultural machinery. It has since been restored and had a biomass boiler installed. During the restoration an unexplained series of unusual pipework was discovered in the floor of the building.{{cite journal|last1=Murless|first1=Brian|first2=Derrick|last2=Warren|title=Hestercombe sawmill, electric power and a mystery|journal=Industrial Archeology News|year=2009|volume=150|page=12|url=http://industrial-archaeology.org/pics/ian150.pdf|access-date=23 May 2013|archive-date=4 May 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140504110841/http://industrial-archaeology.org/pics/ian150.pdf|url-status=dead}} The building now acts as a visitor centre, which includes access to the dynamo room where acetylene gas was produced along with a thermalume generator which produced gas from petrol and air.{{cite web|title=Watermill and barn|url=http://www.hestercombe.com/things-to-do/watermill.html|publisher=Hestercombe|access-date=23 May 2013|archive-date=4 July 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130704064223/http://www.hestercombe.com/things-to-do/watermill.html|url-status=dead}}

{{main|Hestercombe Gardens}}

{{Infobox SSSI

|image=Hestercombe Gardens (6097257589).jpg

|name=Hestercombe House

|aos=Somerset

|interest=Biological

|gridref={{gbmappingsmall|ST242287}}

|area=0.08 hectare (8,600 sq ft)

|notifydate=2000

|map=

}}

When the house and gardens were inherited by Coplestone Warre Bampfylde (1720–91) in the 18th century, a Georgian landscape garden was laid out, containing ponds, a grand cascade, a gothic alcove, a Tuscan temple arbour (1786),{{sfn|Colvin|2008|p=?}} and a folly mausoleum.{{National Heritage List for England |num=1060461 |desc=The Mausoleum in the grounds of Hester combe House|access-date=3 April 2015}} Bampfylde was an amateur architect of talent and a friend and adviser to Henry Hoare who laid out the gardens at Stourhead. Bampfylde also designed a Doric temple for the grounds, which was built around 1786,{{sfn|Bond|1998|p=87}}{{sfn|Colvin|2008|p=?}} with an ashlar tetrastyle prostyle fronted by Tuscan columns and a large modillioned pediment.{{NHLE |num=1390976 |access-date=6 July 2015}} A Victorian formal parterre was added near the house by Henry Hall in the 1870s.{{cite web|url=http://www.parksandgardens.org/index.php?option=com_parksandgardens&task=site&id=1705|title=Hestercombe, Taunton, England|work=Parks & Gardens UK|publisher=Parks and Gardens Data Services Limited (PGDS)|access-date=23 May 2013}}

File:Hestercombe Plan Lutyens Houses and Gardens 1913 Page185.jpg

The Edwardian garden was laid out by Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens between 1904 and 1906 for the Hon E.W.B. Portman,{{NHLE|desc=Garden walls, paving and steps on the south front of Hestercombe House |num=1060514 |access-date=25 April 2011 }}{{sfn|Brown|1982|pp=15, 78, 83–85, 179, 184, 186}} resulting in a garden "remarkable for the bold, concise pattern of its layout, and for the minute attention to detail everywhere to be seen in the variety and imaginative handling of contrasting materials, whether cobble, tile, flint, or thinly coursed local stone".{{sfn|Goode|Lancaster|Jellicoe|Jellicoe|2001}}

Jekyll and Lutyens were leading participants of the Arts and Crafts movement. Jekyll is remembered for her outstanding designs and subtle, painterly approach to the arrangement of the gardens she created, particularly her "hardy flower borders".{{sfn|Bisgrove|1992|pp=90-96}} Jekyll was one of the first of her profession to take into account the colour, texture, and experience of gardens as the prominent authorities in her designs, and she was a lifelong fan of plants of all genres. Her theory of how to design with colour was influenced by painter J. M. W. Turner and by impressionism, and by the theoretical colour wheel. Their collaborative style was first developed at Herstercombe and described by the garden writer and designer Penelope Hobhouse as:

{{Blockquote|text=The collaboration between the architect Edwin Lutyens and gardener Gertrude Jekyll became the Edwardian symbol of good taste, the epitome of excellence for a generation on the brink of extinction. Architectural and planting expertise worked together to produce aesthetic and horticultural compositions, and although few survive in their original state their influence is still felt in countless gardens.{{sfn|Hobhouse|2002|p=403}}}}

The "Great Plat" combined the patterned features of a parterre with the hardy herbaceous planting espoused by Miss Jekyll.{{sfn|Brown|1982|pp=15, 78, 83–85, 179, 184, 186}}{{sfn|Bisgrove|1992|p=161}} Lutyens also designed the orangery about 50 m east of the main house between 1904 and 1909,{{sfn|Waite|1964|p=46}} which is now Grade I listed,{{National Heritage List for England |num=1175994 |desc=Orangery|access-date=3 April 2015}} as are the garden walls, paving and steps on the south front of the house.{{National Heritage List for England |num=1060514 |desc=Garden, walls, paving and steps on South front of Hestercombe House|access-date=3 April 2015}} On either side of the Great Plat are raised terraces with brick water channels. In his 2018 BBC series Paradise Gardens, Monty Don suggested that the garden had many features of the traditional Islamic Paradise Garden.{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09p5qd8|title=Monty Don's Paradise Gardens - BBC Two|website=BBC|access-date=20 January 2018}}

The eastern area is laid out as a Dutch garden with perennial plants such as Large white flowering Yucca gloriosa as groups used vertical elements alternate with purple colored flowering dwarf Lavender (Lavandula), catmint (Nepeta) or silvery colored Zieste (Stachys), Cotton lavender (Santolina), China Rose (Rosa chinensis) or Fuchsia (Fuchsia magellanica).{{cite web|title=Gertrude Jekyll and Hestercombe|url=http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/people-and-places/womens-history/registered-parks-gardens/gertrude-jekyll/|publisher=English Heritage|access-date=10 June 2014}}

{{Gallery | width=170 | height=125 |title=Photographs of the gardens from Weaver (1913)

|Hestercombe Great Plat Lutyens Houses and Gardens 1913 Page189.jpg | Great Plat

|Hestercombe West Water Garden Lutyens Houses and Gardens 1913 Page190.jpg | West water garden

|Hestercombe Orangery Lutyens Houses and Gardens 1913 Page196.jpg | Orangery

|Hestercombe Dutch Garden Lutyens Houses and Gardens 1913 Page200.jpg | Dutch garden

}}

Since October 2003, the landscape and gardens, extending to over {{convert|100|acre|km2}}, have been managed by the Hestercombe Gardens Trust,{{EW charity|1060000|HESTERCOMBE GARDENS TRUST LIMITED}} a registered charity set up to restore and preserve the site with a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £3.7M.{{cite news|title=Hestercombe Garden's Philip White awarded MBE for services to heritage garden restoration|url=http://www.somerset-life.co.uk/people/hestercombe_garden_s_philip_white_awarded_mbe_for_services_to_heritage_garden_restoration_1_1957079|access-date=23 May 2013|newspaper=Somerset Life|date=13 February 2013}} The gardens featured on BBC TV's Gardens Through Time series,{{cite web|title=Episode 23|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ms1nk|work=Gardeners World|publisher=BBC|access-date=23 May 2013}} and cover more than {{convert|40|acre|m2}}, with three different styles of garden ranging from woodland walks to lakes and ponds to formal gardens. The Georgian landscape, Victorian shrubbery and terrace and the formal Edwardian gardens combine to create biodiversity and interest for visitors.

The site is used by lesser horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus hipposideros) as both a breeding and wintering roost site. Numbers of lesser horseshoes at this site are only exceeded by one other site in southwest England. The bats use roofspaces in a former stable block as a maternity site.{{cite web|title=Hestercombe House |work=SSSI Citation sheet |publisher=English Nature |url=http://www.english-nature.org.uk/citation/citation_photo/2000424.pdf |access-date=25 April 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524230656/http://www.english-nature.org.uk/citation/citation_photo/2000424.pdf |archive-date=24 May 2011 |df=dmy-all }} It has been designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC).{{cite web | title=Hestercombe House | publisher=Joint Nature Conservation Committee| url=http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/protectedsites/SACselection/sac.asp?EUCode=UK0030168 | access-date=25 April 2011}}

{{reflist |colwidth=30em}}

• {{cite book |title=The Gardens of Gertrude Jekyll |url=https://archive.org/details/gardensofgertrud00rich_9 |url-access=registration |last=Bisgrove |first=Richard |year=1992 |publisher=Little, Brown |location=Boston |isbn=978-0-7112-0746-2 }}
• {{cite book | last=Bond|first=James| title=Somerset Parks and Gardens | publisher=Somerset Books |year=1998|isbn=978-0-86183-465-5}}
• {{cite book |title=Gardens of a Golden Afternoon: The Story of a Partnership, Edwin Lutyens & Gertrude Jekyll |last=Brown |first=Jane |year=1982 |publisher=Van Nostrand Reinhold |location=New York |isbn=978-0-7139-1440-5 }}
• {{cite book|title=A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840|last=Colvin|first=Howard|year=2008|author-link=Howard Colvin|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-12508-5}}
• {{cite book |title=The Oxford Companion to Gardens |last1=Goode |first1=Patrick |first2=Michael |last2=Lancaster |first3=Geoffrey|last3=Jellicoe|author-link3=Geoffrey Jellicoe|first4=Susan|last4=Jellicoe|year=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-860440-2 }}
• {{cite book|last1=Hobhouse|first1=Penelope|title=The Story of Gardening|date=2002|publisher=Dorling Kindersley|isbn=978-0751333909|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/storyofgardening0000hobh}}
• {{cite book|last1=Hugo|first1=Thomas|title=The History of Hestercombe, in the Parish of Kingston|date=1874|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bukVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA28&dq }}
• {{cite book |title=The Life and Achievements of Sir John Popham, 1531–1607: Leading to the Establishment of the First English Colony in New England |last=Rice |first=Douglas Walthew |year=2005 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |location=Cranbury, New Jersey |isbn=978-0-8386-4060-9 }}
• {{cite book |title=Portrait of the Quantocks |last=Waite |first=Vincent |year=1964 |publisher=Robert Hale |location=London |isbn=0-7091-1158-4 }}
• {{cite book|last=Wakefield|first=Ken|title=Operation Bolero: The Americans in Bristol and the West Country 1942–45|year=1994|publisher=Crecy Books|isbn=0-947554-51-3}}

{{Commons category multi | Hestercombe House | Hestercombe Gardens}}

• [http://www.hestercombe.com/ Hestercombe Gardens]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20140717101030/http://www.parksandgardens.org/places-and-people/site/1705/description Parks & Gardens UK: Hestercombe, Taunton, England] Bibliography.
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DMrbOJP75o YouTube video] — commemoration of WW2 activity, views of gardens.

{{SSSIs Somerset biological}}

Category:Houses completed in the 16th century

Category:Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset

Category:Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 2000

Category:Special Areas of Conservation in England

Category:Grade I listed buildings in Taunton Deane

Category:Grade II* listed buildings in Taunton Deane

Category:Gardens in Somerset

Category:Country houses in Somerset

Category:Watermills in Somerset

Category:Gardens by Gertrude Jekyll

Category:Works of Edwin Lutyens in England

Category:Grade II* listed houses in Somerset

Category:Grade I listed parks and gardens in Somerset

Category:Grade II* listed watermills

Category:Quantock Hills