Sophie Conran's rural idyll of a garden in Wiltshire
Visitors are invariably escorted to Sophie Conran’s door by Mouse, her sweetly lolloping lurcher, past a collection of pot-grown box balls arranged elegantly up the curved front steps. Together, the dog and the topiary perfectly embody the blend of high style and relaxed comfort that is Sophie’s trademark. ‘It’s all about creating an atmosphere,’ she says. ‘I want this house to be a place where people are surrounded by beauty and can unwind and enjoy it all.’
When she first set eyes on Salthrop House, nine years ago, Sophie knew instantly it had all the key elements she was looking for – a Georgian house that was large but not offputtingly so, set in 70 acres of fields and ancient woodland on the edge of the Marlborough Downs, with scope to create the sort of relaxed gardens she fondly remembered playing in as a child. ‘I had been searching for a country bolthole for several years, but when I saw this place I knew it was perfect. It just needed a little help to achieve its full potential.’
Fortunately, Sophie was very much the right woman for the job. As a designer of crockery and cutlery, garden wares and household linens (not to mention being the daughter of design legend Sir Terence Conran and cookery writer Caroline Conran), she is positively steeped in effortless good taste.
‘I have wonderful memories of the Berkshire manor house my parents gradually transformed from its battered former life as a school into a magical home surrounded by rivers and woods,’ she says. ‘There were dogs, cats, chickens and geese, masses of flowers and a brilliant vegetable garden – my favourite place. I wanted to create something like that here.’
For five years, Sophie was able to visit her house only at weekends and during holidays, overseeing renovations from her London flat. ‘As it came together, I was increasingly drawn to the place,’ she says. Serendipitously, two weeks before lockdown, she let out her London flat and moved here properly. That was when the garden really started to come into its own.
‘I think the best gardens are a little bit wild and a little bit organised. It’s a constant work in progress to get the balance right,’ she explains. ‘I pick up ideas all the time – from garden visits, Instagram or just when I’m out in the car. Some happen and some don’t but, overall, the canvas gradually gets richer.’
Today, the house is almost entirely wrapped by semi-formal ornamental areas (greenhouses and outbuildings are behind a wall to the north). The sweeping gravel drive runs past a long border filled with roses, sweet rocket, nepeta, crocosmia and cardoons, leading up to those elegant front steps with their pots of clipped buxus. ‘It looks smart, but the pots were cheap as chips from the local garden centre,’ says Sophie. ‘You don’t need to spend a fortune if you know what you’re looking for.’
In contrast, the back of the house is a picture of natural abundance, with masses of Alchemilla mollis and other pretty self-seeders between the terrace paving slabs. Only a series of overstuffed flowerbeds separates the house from the undulating countryside (managed with a light hand to promote biodiversity), which runs away to the horizon on all sides.
However, the garden is most definitely not just intended to be viewed as a series of carefully curated pictures. ‘In my parents’ garden, we were always collecting flowers, fruit and vegetables to use in the house,’ she recalls. ‘That was a prime inspiration for how I do things here.’
Sophie’s richly planted beds offer plenty of decorative pickings, but the real bounty is to be found through a white wooden gate and across a paddock. Three years ago, she enclosed one end of this grassy slope and created a kitchen garden, complete with timber-edged beds, charmingly ramshackle hazel plant supports, chickens and an array of beehives: ‘I had to start from scratch, but there was the shell of an old bothy and the base and back wall of a large greenhouse, so this must have been the site of the original kitchen garden, when six full-time gardeners took care of the place.’
Today, that workload is managed with skill and a great deal of organisation by Aldetha Raymond, Sophie’s talented head gardener, supported by one other full-timer and a couple of excellent part-timers. Together, they maintain a magnificent new glasshouse filled with Sophie’s beloved pelargonium collection and a practical polytunnel for early-season salads and tomatoes. The latter are all grown in bottomless pots, regularly watered and fed with liquid seaweed fertiliser, which Aldetha says is key to producing a bumper harvest of the tastiest fruit over the longest possible season. (She thinks this is more important than the choice of specific cultivars.)
The main kitchen garden also produces vast quantities of fruit, vegetables and flowers all destined for the house. In fact, it has been such a success that the team recently almost doubled the number of raised beds, put in two large brassica cages and have plans in the pipeline for a soft-fruit cage of impressive proportions. At this time of year, dwarf French beans, peas, kale and cucamelons (ideal for Pimm’s) jostle with nicotianas, cosmos, zinnias, Tula series chrysanthemums and an enviable selection of dahlias, including Sophie’s favourite giant orange ‘Happy Halloween’. Willow structures support a riot of sweet peas, ‘Lazy Housewife’ runner beans and ornamental gourds, all twining together. Intermingling vegetables, herbs and flowers in this way not only helps to baffle any predatory wildlife, but also looks glorious.
‘It all brings me so much joy. There is nothing better than surrounding your house with flowers and filling it with produce you have grown,’ says Sophie, as she contemplates her garden with the deep feeling of contentment that comes from elevating a lovely house into an enchanting home.
Britt Willoughby Dyer1/9Looking east from the rear terrace, ornamental beds punctuated with clipped balls of box mark the transition from the formal gardens to the wildflower meadow and ancient woodland beyond. A mown grass path links the two areas and draws the eye out towards the horizon.
Britt Willoughby Dyer2/9Pink poppies mix with an array of dahlias.
Britt Willoughby Dyer3/9Cottage-garden favourites, such as pink Canterbury bells and fragrant sweet peas, are grown over homemade hazel supports.
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Britt Willoughby Dyer6/9Sophie’s collection of pelargoniums fills the glasshouse designed by Woodpecker Joinery, which sits among raised beds.
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Britt Willoughby Dyer8/9‘Hestia’ runner beans, Lathyrus odoratus ‘Mammoth Lavender Blue’ and Calendula officinalis.
Britt Willoughby Dyer9/9Built from mellow Bath stone, Grade II-listed Salthrop House sits comfortably in the surrounding countryside.
