Lady Adam Gordon

1903-2004

The Trust has lost a great supporter with the death of Pamela Gordon. Her late husband, Lord Adam Gordon, was the grandson of the Gerard Streatfields, Lutyens’s clients for Fulbrook, and the family had kept the letters and accounts for the house’s buildings, and lent some of these treasures for the Lutyens Exhibition (1981-2). Lady Adam supported the idea of the Trust from its inception and allowed the Fulbrook papers to be published in two elegant volumes by the Libanus Trust in 1989: the originals are now in the Godalming Museum collection.

The Gordons had lived at Hethersett, part of Harry Mangles’ Littleworth Cross, since 1958 and Pamela Gordon was always rather amused at the idea that Gertrude Jekyll and the young Ned Lutyens probably met in her sitting room: the beautiful room with large windows overlooking the garden, made the perfect setting for that legendary meeting ‘at a tea-table, the silver kettle and the conversation reflecting rhododendrons’. Since Lord Adam’s death in 1984, she had worked tirelessly to cate for the enchanted woodland of Himalayan species and famous Mangles’ hybrid rhododendrons, winning many prestigious prizes for her flowers.

Jane Brown