The Original 'Sybil's Garden'

Site for Sybil's Garden, 1982

Sybil in the original Sybil's Garden

Sybil sitting on stone seat with Michael Butterfield

Purple Cordyline, 1973

This part of the garden was created after Robin’s death at Sybil’s request.  She had decided to do away with one of the two vegetable gardens and wondered whether the bottom one could be designed on the lines of Mrs. Winthrop’s Garden at Hidcote. Sybil wrote:

“Ever since we have lived at York Gate, Mr Knight, the retired Director of Leeds Park, and Mrs Knight, have visited York Gate regularly.  So I asked his advice about the site.  He suggested I have a sloping bed with a wall halfway down and the rest flat.  He thought the site would take the soil to do that, without having to cart it away.  So my dear Brian moved soil from the top end to the bottom, until we had a level site in the middle, and by October 1982, Sybil’s Garden was ready to plant.”

In the garden, Sybil planted a selection of her favourite shrubs – Robinia Pseudocacia, two Japanese maples, Eucryphia x nymansensis as well as the Evergreen Oak,  Quercus ilex.

A Chinese Chung Lung vase had been bought on one of their visits to York.  Originally placed outside the greenhouse, it was eventually moved to the cellar. 

“Suddenly, in the middle of the night, I thought of this vase and how lovely it would look in the middle of Sybil’s Garden.  So I got my stone mason to put a couple of millstones in the middle and he screwed this vase down, and in it I have my purple cordyline, just as in Mrs Winthrop’s Garden. And lovely it looks. What is more, it’s very appropriate, because the parent of this cordyline was given to me by the head gardener at Hidcote on one of my visits with George Knight and his wife.  This is one of my favourite spots, along with the paved garden.  I don’t know which I love the most.”

In 1989, Sybil lost the Victorian Iron Twig Seat that was at the top end of Sybil’s Garden. (It was stolen.)  So she designed a new stone seat and asked her stone mason to make it.

“Now I think that whoever stole my twig seat did me a good turn, because I love my stone seat more.  It’s perfectly plain Yorkshire stone, with the Rose of York on the back, together with my initials and the date and my stonemason’s initials – a lovely, lovely piece of craftsmanship.  It will just seat three, with the most beautiful view over Sybil’s Garden. “