Norah Lindsay (1873 – 1948)

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The romantic and relaxed planting style of Norah Lindsay is a reflection of that golden age of society when the great hostesses dressed themselves, their houses and their gardens lavishly and elegantly.

Norah Lindsay was a part of that society and gave friendly advice to the likes of Sibyl Colefax, Nancy Astor, Emerald Cunard and Nancy Lancaster. Her own garden, Sutton Courtenay in Oxfordshire (the house and garden given as a wedding present) was an example of the creation of that luxe image, described as having ‘a shining quality… some gardens, like some people, have a charm potent to enslave and yet as intangible as dew or vapour’. She was influenced by Italian gardens and liked to contrast light and dark, setting flowers against a dark yew background. But her gardens were not formal, and she appreciated self-seeded plants: ‘these were before you, these will live after you, so listen to their message and humbly follow in their sedate and simple footsteps’.  

But although all may have looked like artless profusion there was a plan with a colour palette reminiscent of the graded shades of Gertrude Jekyll with drifts of colour punctuated  with grey foliage and sculptural, architectural plants.

By the end of the World War I, after the collapse of her marriage, she needed to earn a living, and continued to offer her advice to her high society friends, but now presenting a bill at the end of a weekend of gardening tips (which may have caused some surprise). However, she need to save money and could not afford a car. She travelled to her clients, and to nurseries by bus or train, and was not afraid of hard work or early rising. ‘The truth is having to stand in the rain two days running and then sleeping in an icy room with all the radiators cut off made me too abominably frozen for words’ she wrote. Her ‘studied casual’ style and approach were greatly admired, and she  received commissions for planting schemes at Blickling, Clivedon, Trent Park, Port Lympne and Mottisfont; and designed royal gardens in Italy, France and Yugoslavia, and for the Prince of Wales at Fort Belvedere in Windsor Great Park.

She developed a close friendship  with Lawrence Johnson, and they worked together at Hidcote. He was planning to bequeath Hidcote to her when she died suddenly in 1948, and he subsequently gave it to The National Trust as their first acquisition. Unfortunately, all her planting plans have been lost as her daughter Nancy (herself another flamboyant character) disagreed with them over its upkeep and burnt all the records.