A garden of 21st-century delights

Times

9 hours ago

'I'm the fifth generation of the Stephenson Clarke family at Borde Hill and the first female to be taking over its reins — so no pressure,' Jay Goddard says with a laugh as she leads the way around the 2,300 acres of magnificent heritage-listed gardens and ancient parkland on her family's estate. At every turn across this beautiful patch of the West Sussex landscape there is a show-stopper, from magnificent magnolias and blousy camellias to a vivid riot of azaleas and rhododendrons (the last was awarded national collection status in 2022).
Borde Hill dates to when Goddard's great-great-grandfather Colonel Stephenson Robert Clarke bought the estate in 1893, including the impressive grade II listed Elizabethan mansion that sits at the garden's heart, which has been added to over the centuries and continues to be the family's home. He funded many of the great early 20th-century plant hunters to bring back specimens of rare and unique plants, some of which had never been seen before in the western world.
Successive generations of the family have kept the gardens moving forward with the times. Godard's mother, for instance, worked with leading RHS gold medal designers such as Chris Beardshaw and Sophie Walker, and redesigned the historic rose garden with hundreds of roses in an arresting colour wheel of whites, yellows, oranges and reds. Over the past 130 years there has always been something new and exciting to see.
Goddard has grand ambitions to continue to broaden Borde Hill's appeal. She took over from her parents, Andrewjohn and Eleni Stephenson Clarke, in 2023, arriving with her husband, Alex, and sons Jago, now eight, and Alfie, six, in tow. Last year the marketeer (who worked with Nike and Apple in London for almost 20 years) secured a £2.25 million grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to fund her dynamic Reinventing Borde Hill restoration plans (with another £1.3 million to raise themselves).
This will help to open up the estate's 110 acres of heritage parkland filled with champion trees — 'that is the oldest, tallest, widest,' she explains — enabling locals and youngsters to really immerse themselves in nature and learn outdoors. To do this a new footpath will trace the 25-minute walk from Haywards Heath station to Borde Hill. There will be a Dinosaur Wood children's play area (so named after some of the earliest dinosaur bones in the country were found here) and a multigenerational community garden with beds set at different height levels to suit the elderly, those in wheelchairs and children. Eventually there will also be an eco-lodge set on the edge of the estate's lake.
Designed by Erect Architecture, which is renowned for its award-winning Tumbling Bay play park and community hub in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London, the lodge will be built using timber felled from the estate. It will house a yoga wellbeing space, café, rooms for workshops and events (inviting local children and schools to use it for classes), and provide access to wild swimming via an adults-only club. 'I want it to help as many people as possible to be more physically active,' she explains.
In the same vein Goddard is keen to promote healthy eating and access to a wider range of locally grown produce. Working with Chantelle Nicholson, the New Zealand-born, Michelin Green-starred chef who has her own regenerative restaurant, Apricity in Mayfair, they have just launched a culinary venture called the Cordia Collective (named after the Prunus avium 'Kordia' black cherry tree). 'It will celebrate our plant heritage in a modern way,' Goddard says of its 'nature-led, consciously crafted' ethos.
Nicholson and her team — including the former Toklas baker Janine Edwards, who is overseeing the new micro bakery — will use as many ingredients as possible from Borde Hill's nearby biodynamic 40-acre farm and 10-acre market garden (which is also part-funded by the lottery grant). They are already 'working with refugee groups on rare and unusual global vegetables to grow there', Goddard adds, and soon they will open the reimagined Victorian walled kitchen garden.
Overlooked by a new glasshouse restaurant being built on the site of the former Victorian tables, the award-winning designer Ann-Marie Powell has focused the walled garden's design around the elements of earth, water, fire and air. It will be filled with 'edimentals' — from Szechuan peppers, tulips and dahlias to an apple orchard underplanted by edible wildflowers. 'Think of all the amazing flavours this will bring to our dishes and drinks,' Goddard says.
Looking at food through 'the lens of nature and bringing the garden to the plate just felt very true to Borde Hill,' Goddard says. There are already garden touches on the café menu, from cinnamon curlicues adorned with magnolia petals, to cheese scones infused with the wild garlic that grows in towering spikes along the footpaths.
The project will also bring in a raft of new volunteers and the opportunity to bolster the core gardening team of five with a young apprentice, as well as helping 'to preserve the garden's venerated historical collection of plants, trees and shrubs'. But before all that, as Godard knows full well, 'people need paths, a pee and a tea,' she says with a smile. 'Without that, no one ventures out.'
bordehill.co.uk; thecordiacollective.com