Sir Henry Price Walled Garden

Sir Henry and Lady Eve Price are commemorated in one of the two walled gardens located beside the Wakehurst Place Mansion.

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Sir Henry Price walled garden

Did you know?

Sir Henry Price was known as the fifty-shilling tailor, as he made suits at an affordable price.
When Sir Henry died in December 1963 he bequeathed the Wakehurst estate to the National Trust, who subsequently leased the estate to Kew for 99 years, beginning on 1 January 1965.
In 1982, after Lady Price had ceased to live in her former home, she officially opened the Lady Price Room in the Mansion, containing a selection of antiques that she and her husband had owned.

Historical information

Following Gerald Loder's death, the subsequent owners of the Gardens, Sir Henry and Lady Eve Price continued his good work by restoring the Mansion and further shaping the gardens. The couple were keen exhibitors at the Royal Horticultural Society Shows and several award-winning plants now bear their names. Examples are Viburnum ‘Eve Price’ and Pieris ‘Henry Price’. Their work is now commemorated in one of the two walled gardens located beside the Mansion.

Informal groupings of plants in beds divided by gravel paths lend a cottage-garden feel. Flowers have been chosen largely from a palette of pastel pinks and mauves. In one bed, visitors encounter clustered purple spires of Liriope platyphylla beside delicate pink Japanese anemones (Anemone x hybrida ‘Kriemhilde’), while Rosa ‘Lavender Lassie’ adds height. Further down the gently west sloping garden, the dark red leaves of the smoke tree (Cotinus coggygria) contrast with the silver foliage of lambs’ ears (Stachys byzantia ‘Big ears’) and silverbush (Convolvulus cneorum).

Things to look out for

On the southern wall of the garden is a carved stone seat donated by Lady Price, in memory of her husband. Unusual silver-leafed pear trees under-planted with pink flowering geranium ‘Claridge Druce’ make an unusual display at the Mansion end of the garden.