Walter Godfrey is yet another forgotten hero who needs bringing back to wider attention. He was an architect, antiquary, and historian. but also a landscape architect, garden designer, and in 1940 he helped mastermind the  setting up  in 1940 of the National Buildings Record,  which was designed  “to meet the dangers of war then threatening many buildings of national importance”.

The passing of the  1947 Town and Country Planning Act  gave it added importance because  one of its main clauses  introduced protections for buildings of architectural and historic interest and it was a  team led by Walter Godfrey  that drew up the  first list of important sites.

He was also interested in gardens.

Born in 1881 Walter Godfrey studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, and ended up articled for a short time to James Williams, who had taken over the practice of the distinguished Victorian architect George Devey.   Williams later  went into partnership with Edmund Wratten, who was to marry Godfrey’s sister and take young Walter into partnership in 1905.

Wratten & Godfrey initially had so little work that Walter had time to write a study of  Devey, which gained him a silver medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects  in 1906.

 

Even at this early stage in his career  Godfrey’s interest in architectural and topographical history was clear. He  become a member of the committee that ran the Survey of London, and he remained involved with the Survey for the rest of his life,  editing several volumes for them. He later became Chairman of, and editor for,  the London Topographical Society.

His first major breakthrough came when he wrote an architectural study  of mediaeval Crosby Place in the City of London,   a significant building threatened with demolition.  It helped lead to the wholesale moving of the house  to a new site in Chelsea in 1909  with Godfrey acting as architect for the move and later for adapting and greatly extending it.

During his long career Godfrey was to write extensively about architecture and archaeology,  but in 1914 he wrote his only book on garden design: Gardens in the Making,  illustrated by black-and-white sketches of many of Devey’s schemes  all by Wratten, Williams or Godfrey himself.

This little book,” Godfrey  wrote, “is the outcome of much practical study of the principles of garden-design, principles which are better understood [though not always more consistently followed at the present day], than they were when they were revived by the late George Devey and others in the middle of the last century.” The others of course included the more well-known   John Sedding and Reginald Blomfield

There is little doubt that Devey was the forerunner of the arts and craft school of design, probably because of his great interest in the traditional vernacular buildings and materials in the Weald.  In  1848 he won his first major commission  from Lord  De L’Isle and Dudley, for the restoration of, and extensions to, a  group of cottages at Penshurst in Kent. where he combined various elements and materials  to create an artificial impression of a building’s age.

He continuing work at Penshurst for the next 20 years which  included remodelling the gardens along the lines of Kip’s early 18th century view. As Godfrey argued “‘none were more steadfast in their support of the older and saner methods of planning than Mr Devey’  and this certainly encouraged Godfrey to adopt the same approach when he began to design  gardens himself.

 

Gardens in the Making bears a lot of  similarities to the approach taken by both Sedding and Blomfield in their garden design books. The first chapter opens with words that could’ve been written by either of them:  “it is not a rare occurrence to meet in the writings of gardeners and of those who are skilled in the planting and nurture of flowers, a protest against the usurpation by the architect of any rights in the mystery and craft of garden making. Horticulture is, indeed, a proud science but its votaries surely assume too much when they state that a knowledge of plants and shrubs is synonymous with the power of design. On the contrary, it has been found that a striking gift in one department of garden activity is often accompanied by a total lack of perception in the other.” The opposition to architects comes from “Head gardeners who fear some loss of prestige of some containment of their imperial and imperial sway.”

There are chapters on first principles. “All arrangements, of whatever kind, should bear the impress of a direct and simple method… utilising to their very best advantage whatever peculiar qualities the site may possess, or such as may be offered by the surrounding country” rather than attempting to force some preconceived plan on the reluctant situation”

So “the stretches of lawn, the enclosures for pleasure gardens, the terraces, wide walks and greens” should all  be as “rectilinear in outline as far as possible. The path should be straight, the planting should be formed in simple masses, the whole effect being well balanced and restful. Isolated clumps of planting should be avoided and single trees and shrubs where valuable enough to be preserved should be linked to boundaries or made to appear intentional objects in the general scheme,”

Next “the aim should be to layout and reveal the beauties of the garden by degrees, not with any forced intricacy, but by such means as shall give as much diversity and mystery as it consistent with simplicity of general treatment.”   A successful version of this “cannot be better achieved than by the use of well raised boundaries of stone and brick, yew, box or beech, such as will ensure the shelter and privacy of every part.”

 

Overall, planning should be “a process of dividing the garden into many gardens, each part having an organic relation with every other part and altogether forming one harmonious scheme.”  The designer “must never forget that to ensure privacy and provide a sustained interest all the divisions must be self-contained, sheltered and generally unapproached saved by well planned paths and archways… If the visitor sees everything as he arrives, he may indeed be struck by the great display, but his curiosity is not aroused nor is his imagination stimulated as in those gardens founded on earlier and sure the principles.”

Finally “each division of the garden should have its own special purpose, its own significance or meaning, and should be adorned with such architectural other features as will sustain the interest and promote the usefulness of each part.” It was also important to maintain “the first requirement of design : the strict unity of house and garden, in all its aspects.”   As part of that  “all the best rooms both living in bedroom should look upon the garden which should be to the south the east and the west while  the north should be reserved for the entrance, corridors, passageways, and offices .” These service buildings should have “picturesque informality, with just enough symmetry to give a dignified and orderly approach… [and] should seldom require the help of flower beds or borders”

 

Then they follows detailed analysis of several sites to see how the various ideas may be carried out always bearing in mind that “the idea of composition must never be absent from our minds and the connecting links: paths, walks, terrorists, steps, archers et cetera, must be carefully thought out.” One of the way he suggests is that the garden should be extended gradually rather than all being done at once for we shall then a customer ourselves to each addition as it is made and familiarise our eyes with the way in which the whole composition is being formed.”

Other chapters cover his views on almost every kind of garden or garden feature imaginable.

In 1919 Godfrey was given the opportunity to put his ideas and principles into practice when he  was commissioned by Stanley Hazell to convert the early 18thc parish  workhouse at Lingfield in Surrey into a house and to lay out gardens around it.

“The Garth Pleasure Grounds” as the 9 acres of grounds are now described, are subdivided into many separate ‘rooms’, often by hedges or walls, and with paths linking the individual areas. includes various features designed by Godfrey such as a terrace, gazebo, pergola, bird bath, well, the courtyard bench, small fountain and ornate iron gates.

The grounds were altered in the late 20th Century but a plan of the garden from 1922 shows that it retained many key features from Godfrey’s original design. The Garth itself is now listed Grade II*  and although the garden is not registered, it remains a key part of the setting. There’s more about its history at “September 2012 Heritage Report- The Garth RH7 6BJ”

 

Another important early commission was for Olaf Hambro at Kidbrooke Park on the edge of Ashdown Forest beginning in 1924.  The house had been built in the 1730s and later altered several times with grounds and gardens  laid out by Humphry Repton. Godfrey designed formal gardens, with a large paved terrace, with the usual urns and low walls and  a circular pergola with stone columns which linked to the walled kitchen garden.

Perhaps the most interesting bit of planting is the semi-circle of Italian cypresses  which serve as a transition between the formal and informal parts of the garden. Arthur Oswald in Country Life  waxed lyrical about the effect : “six tall cypresses, besides adding a note of formality, are valuable in throwing the distance back, much as an organ screen in a cathedral increases the apparent length of the eastward vista. Their dark, slender silhouettes contrast, too, with the masses of lighter foliage behind. This is a lovely chiaroscuro in all the varied shades of green, to which for a few months in the summer banks of rhododendrons and azaleas flanking the second lawn add brighter touches..”

His and Wratten’s  work at Kidbrooke was noticed  by Percy Cane and together with their work at Dalingridge Place, were illustrated in Cane’s 1926 book Modern Gardens, British & foreign.

 

After Wratten’s  death in 1925, Godfrey ran the practice on his own  but when recession began in the early 1930s he decided to closed the London office and move to Lewes, and it was there that he spent the remainder of his life.

His next  important commission was local: Charleston Manor, Sussex  for the painter Sir Oswald Birley and his wife  They  bought Charleston in 1928 and four years later asked Godfrey to refurbish the house and to work with them create new gardens.  The Birleys  followed his advice about using the landscape to govern the design, and took advantage of the narrow valley. While  he laid out the overall structure  they took responsibility for the majority of the planting.

Although the property has changed hands several times since the gardens survive largely as they were  designed in the 1930s.  There is a full description by A.J.Huxley in Country Life the year after Godfrey died.  The gardens are listed at grade 2* and they also have a very detailed entry on  Historic England register.

 

Around the same time Godfrey became involved in the restoration of another important historic building in  Sussex:  Herstmonceux Castle which had just been bought by Sir Paul Latham.

The interior of the castle had been largely demolished and turned into a romantic ruin in 1777, so that as Christopher Hussey commented in Country Life in 1935 “Much that would have been of great archaological interest was irretrievably destroyed”. However, he went on, ” the remarkable combination of scholarship and artistic sense that Sir Paul Latham and Mr. Godfrey have brought to bear on their responsibilities …

…have shown up everything of the old work that is significant without moving a stone that survived. The character of the reconstructions harmonises perfectly with the old, but, being honest and simple, does not falsify it or go to the other extreme of emphasising its antiquity by cheerless pedantry.”  This was largely down to Godfrey’s ‘learning, artistic sense, and first-rate practical ability,” making him “the ideal architect for handling so precious a possession as the Castle.

Godfrey  also “co-operated with Captain V. S. Daniel in matters connected with the garden and the refilling of the moat” which had been dry for centuries.  Again he drew on his guiding principles and returned to the historic evidence for his garden layout.

It was,  concluded Hussey, an “achievement of real national value…and has ended by adding to our land’s heritage a spectacle that for sheer breath-taking glamour is not to be surpassed in Europe. Sir Paul in realising the castle of his dreams, has restored to Britain’s heritage a possession not to be surpassed in any country of the world.”

Latham is a very interesting character. He was only 27 when he bought Herstmonceux and looked to have a glittering career ahead of him. He was an army officer and Tory MP but was court-martialled for “improper behaviour”, with three gunners and a civilian, and disgraced. He  also had a long term relationship with Eddy Sackville-West, the owner of Knole and Vita’s brother.

Up until 1939 Godfrey ran  his modest domestic practice and wrote architectural and archeological papers.  However, when the war came and art treasures were moved out of London galleries and museums, Godfrey worried about the fate of historic buildings which could not of course be moved. A conference held at Royal Institute of British Architects  in  1940 suggested a central body charged with the recording of historic buildings which might be damaged or destroyed. This was the National Buildings Record (later the National Monuments Record) and Godfrey became its director – a job which  he held until 1960.

Godfrey became recognised as one of the outstanding conservation architects of his generation. In 1944 he published  Our Building Inheritance: Are we to use or lose it?  a wartime defence of historic architecture, arguing for the active re-use, adaptation, and conservation of traditional and vernacular buildings rather than wholesale demolition and replacement during urban reconstruction. [Unfortunately, as far as I can see,  it is not available on-line.]

There  are almost too many of his projects  and books to list so if you want to know more about them look at his Wikipedia entry. In some case he designed gardens to go with the houses he restored, as well as undertaking one-off garden designs. These were almost all in rural settings and the high grades given to his sites on the Register demonstrate both their importance and his significance as a garden designer.

For more information: Unfortunately very little has been written about him and the only detailed research on his gardens is Virginia Hinze’s ‘The Garden Designs of Walter Hindes Godfrey, 1881-1961’, (unpublished PG Dip Dissertation, 1993, The Architectural Association).  However he does get quite a few mentions in the 2022 PhD thesis of Sara Tenneson on The revival of the formal garden in the late nineteenth century and the contribution of architects George Devey (1820-1886) and Sir Reginald Blomfield (1856-1942)