A raft of works in the Cliveden Estate is nearing completion – including a more attractive central path, better accessibility for wheelchair users and a new biodiversity-boosting planting scheme.
Last week, the National Trust applied for listed building consent for works to install automatic gates at both ends of the Long Garden path, as part of a wider scheme.
The historic garden, open all year round, receives about 500,000 visitors a year.
A makeover for The Long Garden was announced in 2024, including a new planting scheme inspired by Cliveden gardener Norah Lindsay’s original designs from the 1930s.
Lindsay, once a well-connected aristocrat, found herself single and facing financial ruin aged 51 – so decided to use her gardening skills to forge a career as garden designer for high society.
Her original topiary designs still exist in the Long Garden today.
Work continues on the new biodiverse planting scheme, featuring brightly coloured herbaceous flowers, small shrubs and ornamental grasses. It is expected to attract more pollinators.
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Access to the garden has been limited while work has been ongoing, but now the Long Garden is fully open to visitors.
As well as the new plants, the changes also included ripping up the Long Garden central path, made of artificial grass.
The National Trust has a policy of removing all artificial grass from its properties due to environmental concerns.
In its place is a new two-metre-wide path paved in Apperley antique paving. This is an indigenous York stone with an aged appearance, used elsewhere in Cliveden.
The new path is 30cm wider and has a smooth surface, rather than a ‘reclaimed’ uneven one – the better for wheelchairs and other mobility aids.
The National Trust says these changes have gone down well with the disabled community.
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Works in progress.
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Meanwhile, the new gates – yet to be approved – are designed to match the architectural style of other historical parts of the estate.
They are the same style as the old gates but will be on an automatic timer, closing at 5pm to keep deer and rabbits from nibbling the new plants after hours.
These works lie within the setting of the estate’s historic red brick boundary wall, dating from the early 19th century and significantly altered in the 1890s by William Waldorf Astor.
Astor was a wealthy and eccentric American expat who owned Cliveden from 1893 until his death in 1919.
Elements of the wall, especially in the vicinity of the Long Garden, hold important historical marks of his time there – including the embedded glass near the Blenheim Pavilion (a Grade I-listed, Georgian-era garden building designed by Giacomo Leoni in 1727).
This embedded glass is a result of Astor’s intense desire for privacy and security.
He is said to have ‘hated the public’ and held deep fears of assassination and kidnap.
As such, Astor is said to have put in a ‘huge wall’ ‘surmounted by jagged bits of glass’.
The new gates are the last element to be installed at Cliveden. It now falls to Bucks council to decide whether to approve or refuse the plans.
See all documents using reference PL/25/1293/HB in the Chilterns and South Bucks planning portal at: pa-csb.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/online-applications
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