The landscape surrounding the nineteenth-century Waddesdon Manor, in Buckinghamshire, is registered at Grade I. There are undoubtedly many splendid features within the gardens, but this post focuses on rockwork: as noted in Waddesdon’s online Pulham Rockwork Walking Trail, the gardens at Waddesdon are ‘exceptionally rich in this… form of landscaping’, the majority of it by James Pulham and Son – some using natural rock, and some using Pulhamite.
Pulhamite
The work of James Pulham and Son is comprehensively addressed in the late Claude Hitching’s seminal text, Rock Landscapes: The Pulham Legacy: Rock Gardens, Grottoes, Ferneries, Follies, Fountains and Garden Ornaments (2012), and related website.
James Pulham (‘James 1’: 1793-1838) trained as a stone modeller whilst apprenticed to J & W Lockwood, later managing the firm’s London branch. His son, James 2 (1820-98) took over the business on his father’s death, and ‘used his stone-modelling skills to form artificial rocks from heaps of old bricks and rubble covered in cement, and ‘sculpted’ the surfaces to simulate the colour and texture of natural stone’; this cement was to become known as Pulhamite.
Significant garden landscaping projects ensued from the 1840s, using both natural stone and Pulhamite, most famously featuring picturesque rock gardens. James 2 also began production of garden ornaments, setting up a manufactory in Broxbourne. James 2’s son, James 3 (1845-1920) became a partner in the business in 1865, after which it was known as James Pulham and Son. James 3’s son, James 4 (1873-1957) was also brought into the business, which prospered until World War I before declining, and eventually closed in 1939. Hitching describes the firm as ‘one of the most renowned firms of landscape gardeners of the 19th and early 20th centuries’.
Pulhamite at Waddesdon
Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild purchased Waddesdon in 1874, from the Duke of Marlborough, and was quick to undertake extensive works to both house and garden. Inspired by the rock and water gardens at his uncle’s garden at Gunnersbury, and the future Edward VII’s garden at Sandringham, he commissioned work from James Pulham and Son; they started work at the site in 1877, and remained involved until 1892.
The house passed to the Baron’s sister, Alice de Rothschild, in 1898, from whom it later transferred to James de Rothschild, in 1922. It was James who left Waddesdon to the National Trust in the late 1950s: it is now managed by the Rothschild Foundation on behalf of the National Trust, under the leadership of Jacob, Lord Rothschild; the Foundation continues to add to the Waddesdon collections.
The Waddesdon website offers a Pulham rockwork walking trail, highlighting the various locations of rockwork, or other work by Pulhams, within the grounds: the North Front, Aviary Grotto, Tulip Patch, Water Garden, and Paris Vases. These are explored in turn below.
North Front
To the north-west of the house, along the main entrance drive, and extending around to the top of the Aviary Garden, is a large grotto, screened in part by vegetation. The scale of Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild’s works in levelling this hilltop site, digging the manor’s foundations, and creating the drives created an excess of earth and rock. This was used to create landscaped banks along the drive, in which the natural rocks were supplemented with Pulhamite to create both rocky outcrops and a grotto – the latter used initially to house Baron Ferdinand’s goats, and later garden tools.
The walking trail entry describes the tunnel at one end, which forms ‘the entrance to a large water tank to feed the house, built into, and disguised by, the artificial bank’, which is ‘no longer used, but is still there beneath the ground’. Hitching notes the entrance to ‘The Cavern’, stating that it was ‘later converted to house the massive water tank that is still there today’. The entry for the Grade II-listed ‘ice house below mound with rock formations’ describes the mound as being:
… dotted with picturesque man-made outcrops of rock. Entrance has arched double doors with rustic decoration of small split branches, set in an artificial cavern of similar rocks.
Aviary Grotto
The nearby crescent-shaped aviary dates from the 1880s, and is also listed (Grade II). As Hitching notes, the ornamental rockwork in the aviary’s central pavilion is not ‘likely to be attributable to Pulhams’; instead, this is thought to be the work of another firm, Harpham, based in London.
Tulip Patch
Baron Ferdinand’s goats had to be moved from their North Drive home, as they were rather too pungent for such a prime site. They were relocated to a purpose-built home on the ‘Tulip Patch’, near the Stables, which took the form of two Pulham grottoes. Hitching advises they were ‘brick built internally, but covered in natural rocks on the outside’; further rocks were used on the surrounding land.
The Tulip Patch grottoes were repaired by Alan Bishop & Associates in 2014’: pictures of the work in progress can be seen here.
Water Garden
Waddesdon was designed for entertaining, and Baron Ferdinand offered a garden tour for his visitors. This included some of the features referred to above, the ornamental Dairy, ‘Paradise’ (the kitchen garden, largely demolished in the 1960s), and the glasshouses (demolished in the 1970s), located below the Stables; according to the Waddesdon website, the main glasshouse (known as ‘Top Glass’) was ‘landscaped with rockwork and an underground cavern, and was planted with palm trees and ferns’.
The highlight of the tour, though, was the Water Garden, adjoining the Dairy. Created in the mid-1880s it remains (as noted in the rockwork trail entry) ‘Pulham’s most impressive rock work at Waddesdon’, and makes significant use of Pulhamite.
Entry to the Water Garden was via a rustic building at the top of some steps, providing an initial view over the garden. At the base of the steps is one of the main ponds, from which paths weave around and through rockwork to other ponds. A large outcrop screens the entrance to a grotto, and what Hitching describes as a ‘massive archway over the path that runs around the water garden’ represents ‘an excellent example of the rock-builder’s craftsmanship… among the best quality Pulhamite anywhere’.
The rockwork facing the Dairy and Dairy Pool is described by Hitching as ‘quite a bit ‘rougher’ than the water garden archway’ and other work, concluding that ‘by normal Pulham standards, this area is quite casually executed’. The rockwork trail entry suggests that it ‘could be by later rockworkers employed at Waddesdon’. It includes planting pockets, and, at the southern end, a small cascade.
The Water Garden was abandoned during the Second World War, and fell into disrepair. It was then forgotten, only being rediscovered in 1989. Hitching describes how Beth Rothschild ‘heard about its existence from a former Waddesdon head gardener [and] brought in specialist garden designers to supervise the clearance and restoration of the site’. In 2021, extensive repairs were undertaken to the rockwork (again by Alan Bishop & Associates), involving structural work to address cracks and strengthen the foundations, and repairs to the front elevation of the Pulhamite: pictures of the works can be seen here.
Paris Vases
The last of the instances of work by Pulhams at Waddesdon is not original to the site, actually only being introduced in 2017, and constitutes a further example of the importance of Claude Hitching to the world of Pulhamite – as well as an example of the more delicate and decorative form of Pulham work.
Rock Landscapes includes an explanation of the origins of the Paris Vase. The Pulham Garden Ornament Catalogue dates from the 1920s, and includes images of the firm’s range of vases, including the ‘Paris’ vase (also known as the Broxbourne or Alexandra vase), thought to have first been exhibited in 1867, at the Paris Universal Exhibition. As reported in Hitching’s December 2012 newsletter:
It was thought that no original vases in good condition remained in existence, but I received another email recently from someone who had just inherited a pair! There was minor damage on one of them, but, as the present owner is a sculptor, they are in safe hands.
The December 2016 newsletter provided an update, outlining that the restoration had been completed earlier that year, and that the owner had sought advice on sites where these large vases (4ft high and 3ft in diameter) might appropriately be accommodated. Hitching contacted the Rothschild Foundation, who acquired the pieces, and advised that:
From early 2017, they will be displayed on the terrace outside the Dairy, where they will feature prominently in the Water Garden, and face the Pulham landscape garden on the other side of the pond. The Dairy is regularly used as a venue for corporate and private entertainment, as well as for public tours, and the rock and water garden outside the Dairy is one of the highlights of the gardens at Waddesdon. The acquisition of these vases does not only complement existing Pulham work at Waddesdon, but it also means that we will be able to display the full range of Pulham’s production.
Reflections
There is also work by Pulhams at Alice de Rothschild’s neighbouring estate, Eythrope (in the shape of a small island framed by a rock formation known as the Cascade), and at Alfred Rothschild’s Halton House (a fernery, artificial stream, pool, cascade and fountain). Whilst other family members in ‘Rothschildshire’ do not appear to have been similarly tempted in their own estates at Mentmore Towers, Aston Clinton House, Tring Park Mansion, and Ascott House, Pulhams undertook considerable work in the wider area, as shown by Hitching’s Home Counties gazetteer. The general popularity of Pulham work is unsurprising, given its realism and combination of the decorative and practical (a rock garden with storage is always something to be appreciated), but the cluster of examples at Waddesdon is particularly fine.
Gardens, Heritage and Planning 