Garden and Green

Great Dixter

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has announced that it has earmarked over £4 million towards a £7 million project to safeguard the future of Great Dixter, internationally famed for its garden and its Grade 1 listed timber framed house, for the continued enjoyment of the nation.

The HLF endorsement provides an important launch pad for the Great Dixter Charitable Trust to achieve its objectives:

• to bring the entire Estate under the ownership of the Trust

• to conserve and present previously unseen family papers and collections

• to make essential repairs to the historic buildings, and

• to develop its unique training of horticultural students

The Trust is fundraising to secure the remaining £3 million.

Great Dixter contains one of the largest surviving medieval timber-framed halls in the country. The inspirational garden was established and maintained by the Lloyd family over the 20th and 21st centuries.

The 57 acre Great Dixter estate was the home of the famous 20th century gardener and writer Christopher Lloyd (Christo) who spent his long and distinguished horticultural career practising and communicating his dynamic approach to gardening, while also ensuring the estate was self-sufficient and sustainable. His regular articles in The Guardian and Country Life magazine have influenced thousands of today’s gardeners- professionals, amateurs and horticultural students all over the world.

Success with the Stage 1 HLF bid*, submitted in September 2007, will mean the project team can draw up detailed plans for a Stage 2 submission to the HLF in Autumn 2008. A decision early in 2009 would hopefully provide funding for work to begin.

Carole Souter, Director of the Heritage Lottery Fund, said: “Great Dixter is one of England’s most wonderful gardens and a permanent reminder of the vision of Christopher Lloyd. The estate is run by a dedicated team who are passionate about its legacy. The support of the Heritage Lottery Fund will help secure the future of this internationally important site, its collections and its contribution to the development and training of gardens and gardeners across the world.”

At Dixter there is a long tradition of ‘nurturing people and plants’ as gardeners, students and volunteers, all live and work together. The project will improve the educational facilities, providing opportunities for more people to experience intensive and experimental horticulture and other activities essential to maintaining a sustainable estate today.

The project will also provide greater public access to the Dixter archive. The archive is a time capsule of the 20th century with records of lives led at Great Dixter from the arrival of the Lloyds in June 1912 (the Lloyds bought the estate in 1910). This contains a wealth of original drawings, journals and historic photographs and correspondence between Nathaniel Lloyd, Christo’s father, and Sir Edwin Lutyens the great early 20th century British architect, who was commissioned to restore and enlarge the decaying medieval house to accommodate the needs of an Edwardian family.

Since 1991, much of the success of the garden has been due to the unique relationship between Christo and Fergus Garrett, the Head Gardener who inspired each other to challenge and experiment with planting to create the most ‘generous garden imaginable’. It is one of the best documented gardens in the world.

Christopher Lloyd formed the Great Dixter Charitable Trust in 2004, to receive his estate and to carry on managing it in the same spirit of innovation. Following Christo’s death in 2006, the garden continues to flourish under Fergus’s inspirational leadership.

Fergus Garrett, Head Gardener and Chief Executive and the Great Dixter Charitable Trust, said: “We are delighted - Dixter deserves it. Christo left us a very special legacy and people love to come and be inspired. The HLF has given us a fantastic launch pad for our future plans. Now the hard work begins!”