Continuing the legacy (From The Argus)

Continuing the legacy

11:55am Monday 6th August 2012 in Interview By Nione Meakin

A trip to one of the
Great Gardens of
Sussex is a treat at any
time but especially
when it’s a hot afternoon and
you’re ostensibly “working”.
Located just outside
Haywards Heath, Borde Hill has
belonged to the Stephenson
Clarke family since 1892, when
Colonel Stephenson Clarke
purchased the 200-acre estate
with a view to creating a
garden to show off the many
rare trees and shrubs he had
amassed through sponsoring
plant-hunting expeditions in
China, Burma, Tasmania
and the Andes.
His great-grandson Andrew
John Stephenson Clarke,
who was recently appointed
High Sheriff of West Sussex,
greets me at the entrance.
His Greek Cypriot wife Eleni,
exuding a Mediterranean
elegance in the heat, joins us
and we wander through the
“rooms” of the garden. In the
tranquil Italian Gardens, water
lilies of all hues are in bloom
on the ornamental pond and
the adjacent Long Dell is a
jungle of sub-tropical plants.
The couple are not alone in
breathing a sigh of relief at
the belated arrival of summer.
Aside from concern for the
gardens (the roses, Mrs Clarke
says, have taken a bit of a
battering) Borde Hill relies on
visitors. They are arriving by the
coach-load now, but the past
few months have been quieter
than they would have liked.
Running a place like Borde
Hill is a privilege but also, of
course, a responsibility. It took
around a decade, Mr Clarke
says, before he began to see it
as more than mere duty.
The youngest of three, he
had not expected to inherit the
property, but when his father
died in 1987 (“Days after
the Great Storm; fortunately
he never saw the damage”), he
discovered discussions had
taken place and it was he, and
not his eldest brother, who was
to be offered the role.
“It was my grandparents’
house so I knew it from visiting
and playing in but I wasn’t
brought up here
and, at the time,
I was living in
London and
expecting to
stay there. I
could have said
no and trustees
would have
taken care of
it but it wasn’t
a difficult decision
to make
because it was
important to me that the
family remained involved in
how it was run.”
He and Eleni moved into
the Elizabethan mansion at
the heart of the estate within
weeks, inheriting centuries of
history and a grand collection
of stuffed animal heads shot
by family forebears. Various
zebras, antelope and even a
warthog look down from the
walls with curiously disparate
expressions.
There were – and still are –
a lot of balances to be struck.
“You’re the figurehead of the
family, in charge of staff, the
person who sets the tone for
how the business is run. You
constantly have to look at the
long-term as well as the immediate
details of what needs doing
from day to day. It took about
ten years before it became
something I enjoyed doing.”
Mrs Clarke is painted by her
husband – very convincingly –
as the powerhouse driving the
business forward. She took
courses in both horticulture
and marketing on moving
to Borde Hill and sits on the
board of Sussex Tourism
Partnership, as well as being
a member of the Historic
Houses Association, and a
trustee for Sussex Gardens
Trust. She knows the garden
intimately and is regularly to
be spotted pulling up weeds.
“I had to learn the names of
all the plants,” she says with
a smile. “But
it was good
for me.”
The couple
met at university
– Kings College
London – where
she was taking a
master’s in geochemistry
and
he was studying
engineering. She
had no idea his
family owned
Borde Hill until six months
into their relationship. “He
never told me. And he was
always dressed down. It was
his brother who eventually
mentioned it. But it was good
to get to know each other
without any expectations.”
They seem a perfect match,
especially on a practical level.
Her husband says he is very
much “not a plant person.
I know nothing about it really.
It’s not my natural activity.
I’ll fiddle around in the
vegetable patch but that’s
about it. My interest is in
making it somewhere for my
family to enjoy living, a place
the public will enjoy and
a sustainable business.”
This is no small feat. Every
year, the couple set out to
improve the garden, which they
define as adding horticultural
interest and more general
appeal. This year, it’s meant the introduction of a new blue
and white scheme in the Rose
Garden, a coloured herbaceous
border in Paradise Walk (“It
was looking too green,” says
Mrs Clarke) and a revival of
the woodlands that surround
the garden and are, in their
opinion, much underused.
There is a lot of maintenance
– and only four gardeners. “My
great-grandfather,” notes Mr
Clarke, “had 27.” They strive to
tread the line between bringing
in all-important visitors,
who provide vital funds, and
ensuring the garden remains
a relaxing and beautiful place.
“Our preference is to draw in
enough people to make it
viable but not so many that
there are wall-to-wall crowds
and little room to admire
everything.”
Financially, their only hope
is to break even, Mr Clarke
says. “We’ve never made any
profit and we only sometimes
manage to break even, so you
do have to put in money as a
family.” “We feel we have to do
our best to pass it on to the
next generation,” adds his wife.
They mean their own family,
of course – they have a daughter,
Jay, 29, and a son, Harry,
28, who they hope will take
over the house one day. But
they also mean the public.
I had assumed the art exhibitions,
the adventure playground,
the award-winning restaurant
were all just examples of the
diversification necessary for
a historic property to survive
the 21st century but it seems it
is about more than that. The
couple emphasise time and
again that Borde Hill is a public
resource – they welcome picnics,
children, even dogs (as long as
they are on leads). One man,
they tell me, completes his
morning run around the
estate; they love that.
“We see the future of Borde
Hill as more people seeing
it as theirs, somewhere to
bring their families and enjoy
– for whatever reason. If we
achieve that, we will consider
ourselves a success.”
 

*Borde Hill is open from
10am to 5pm until November 4.
Entry from £7.50 for adults,
£5 for children over the age of
three. For more information,
visit www.bordehill.co.uk