Goddards Week

The Study Day: Four Gardens Designed by Gertrude Jekyll, Led by Professor Michael Tooley. 13 June 2001

Eighteen of us met at Godalming Station and proceeded by coach to Munstead Wood where Lady Clarke had generously opened the house and garden for us. As we walked round the garden Michael Tooley explained it to us in detail and told us about its restoration by Lady Clarke and the gardener, Andrew Robinson. As Michael Tooley is himself advising on the project, his commentary was particularly interesting. We then looked round the house, Lutyens’s first great collaboration with Gertrude Jekyll. We returned to Goddards for an excellent buffet lunch organized by our secretary, Claire Hill, and looked round the garden.

In the afternoon we visited Woodhouse Copse by kind permission of the owner, Mrs. Monica Saunders. The house was built by Oliver Hill, the garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll. Finally we visited the Phillips Memorial Cloister, Godalming, designed by Thackeray Turner and Gertrude Jekyll in memory of the heroic wireless operator who went down with the ‘Titanic’.

For SPAB (Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings) scholars stayed at Goddards for three nights as part of their course, and the SPAB Education committee held a meeting there.

The Arts and Crafts Movement in Surrey met at Goddards and had lunch in the Common Room. Russell Morris led a tour of Goddards and of Pasture Wood.

CP