Other Gardens
Lost, Found and Restored
Ralph, and later with Bramley, designed and made hundred's of gardens. Many are well known and are explored on other pages within this website. Other 'domestic' gardens are quite possibly lost forever, their whereabouts unknown.
​
Unfortunately, for latter day garden hunters, Ralph's 'When I Make A Garden' gives very little help in locating these missing gems. Most images are not annotated or are simply Show Gardens from Chelsea or elsewhere.
​
Some of the following gardens have been rediscovered, their exact whereabouts are now known. But, others are yet to been found.
Twyn-yr-Hydd
​
It was at one of the post-war Chelsea shows (probably in 1948) that Sir David Evan Bevans (a Director of Barclays Bank) commissioned Ralph and Bramley to build the gardens at Twyn-yr-Hydd within Margam Park near Port Talbot, south Wales.
This delightful photograph of Miss Bella Clunn (right), who was Sir David's housekeeper in the 1950's, shows her in the walled rose garden. (Picture courtesy of Joyce Hunt).
​
The picturesque Twyn-yr-Hydd House and the gardens in which it stands were, for a number years, the home of Neath Port Talbot College based in Margam Park. It was through the tireless work of students of the Horticultural Department and their Lecturer Robert Priddle that the gardens were identified as being by Ralph. The college has since vacated the building but not before the gardens received a make-over by the students.
The high walled garden contains many of the features for which Ralph has become known. Cotswold stone walls with wrought iron Clairvoyee and an attractive formal pond. There's even an ancient well and stone bridge crossing a stream.​
Bella Clunn and the walled rose garden
After the college left Twyn-yr-Hydd, the house became a wedding venue and the gardens a place to take photographs. Sadly, the local authority decided that they could no longer fund the house and so the gardens became neglected once again.
​
It wasn't until Joyce Hunt, a local retired school teacher, started to research her own family that she uncovered the connection between her Grandmother and the house, that the gardens become the focus of attention once again. Not only did Joyce set about restoring the gardens, she even got CADW, the Welsh Government's historic environment service involved and secured funding. Joyce also roped in the Friends of Margam Park in her project. Through her incredible efforts, Joyce even tracked down the long missing statue from the walled garden pond statue and secured funding by TATA Steelworks to replace it.
​
Joyce has also taken the lead in discovering other Hancock designed gardens both in his native Wales and further afield. She has helped raise his profile and continues to tell his story.
​
For more information about the history of Twyn-yr-Hydd please follow this link. for more information about the work of the Friends of Margam Park, and specifically the restoration of the gardens please take a look at the groups website.
The walled garden circa 1949
Close-up of wrought iron gate
The Hancock designed gate leading to the walled garden
Joyce Hunt and pond pre-restoration
St Quentin's House, Llanblethian,
St Quentin's House, Llanblethian near Cowbridge was described and regarded as one of the finest landscaped gardens in the Vale of Glamorgan. A 1947 sale document described the garden as thus;
The main terrace is paved, flanked by a dwarf wall, and leads to a large lawn, 72ft by 40ft, which is surrounded by herbaceous borders. Beyond the terrace is the walled and productive kitchen garden, intersected by grass walks and with an ornamental sundial in the centre. A second terrace, with a goldfish pond and a sundial, leads to a well-kept rose and flower garden, lawns and rockeries, interspersed with paved walks. The stock of fruit trees includes apples, pears, plums, gages, peaches, nectarines, raspberries, gooseberries and blackcurrants, and there is an outdoor vine. The ornamental gardens are flanked by trim Thuya hedges with dwarf Box hedge borders. The rockeries are stocked with most known Alpine plants, and the flower beds with a good variety of roses and bulbs. - All very much in the style of Hancock and Son.
St. Quentin's House was bought at an auction by brothers Francis and Ronald Walters in 1947, on the death of its previous owner, Blanche Homfray. It was probably shortly after this, the garden belonging to the cottage, which was previously the stables for the larger house, was redesigned by Ralph Hancock.
It was constructed using Westmoreland stone, he created a series of rockeries and pools which cascade down the side of the hill to an ornamental pond at the foot of the garden. Stone paths run between the flower gardens, lawns and shrubs. Low stone walls and Ralph's familiar herringbone brick walkways are evident throughout the garden.
An Italianate fishpond complete with a fountain strikes a classical note at the foot of wide stone steps, enhanced by a number of stone statues. The original box borders around the sundial have long gone but some of the topiary remains. The trees have now matured. A fine example of this is a tall Gingko overhanging one of the larger ponds.
The character of the garden is still clearly recognisable. The stonework, although aged with time, still maintains the structure and vistas of Ralph’s design. Although the formality of some areas of the garden have blurred over the last seventy plus years, the essence has been preserved and may now be appreciated as a more romantic setting for its sunlit terraces, shady pools and arched walkways.
N.B. This private garden is not open to the public.
All images by and reproduce through the courteously of Joyce Hunt
Oat Barns, Lingfield, Surrey
​
Oat Barns (also known as Oatbarns), formerly known as Mitchels/Mitchells in the late 1600’s and early 1700’s, was built as a high status hall house of four bays and has been dated to 1476/77. The one-bay open hall has evidence of a gallery across the hall linking the two floored ends. It is timber-framed with a rendered plinth, rendered brick cladding below and tile hung above. It has a Horsham slab roof with a rear ridge stack to the left end and an offset end stack to the right. Oat Barns was Grade II listed on 25th April 1984.
​
In 1999, sales particulars describe the property as a "very appealing 15th century house… The gardens of around an acre are a delight, with a great variety of trees and shrubs…" Another description of the gardens states: "The delightful grounds feature screening trees and laurels, flowerbeds, lawns, old well head with grille and attractive maple tree, heathers, borders and rhododendrons".
​
Oat Barns is about a mile from Hancock’s home at Gatehouse Farmhouse and there is a colour image (right) of the west end of the house in the 1950 edition of When I Make a Garden.
​
Adjacent to the large chimney stack there is flower bed and in front of that is a circular York-stone and herringbone brickwork feature with a sun dial set in it, with a York-stone and herringbone brickwork walkway leading to it, bordered on its north side by another flower bed. The end of the house has a pinky-red rose rambling up the chimney stack and across the tile hanging and the flower bed and border are filled with pinky-red shrub roses. Interspersed in the York-stone and herringbone brickwork paths are small clumps of low growing plants. Off to the right-hand side of the photograph, on the south side of the house, there is a topiary tree, strategically placed next to a pathway. ​
The only colour image in "When I Make a Garden" is of Oat Barns
The garden was commissioned, probably in the late 1930’s, by Charles Francis, an American and Director of British Home Stores who lived in London, and purchased Oat Barns as a country retreat in about 1935. It is known that Charles Francis had an interest in ferns, which may have been an influencing factor in commissioning Ralph as he too appreciated the use of ferns in his garden designs writing in his book When I Make A Garden: "We have far too long neglected the hardy fern. For the woodland’s fringe or the lake-side the delicate tracery of their fronds is a delight from early spring until the autumn frosts".
​
Over the years the garden at Oat Barns fell into disarray and the York-stone and herringbone brickwork pathways were in need of re-laying but since 2004, the current owner has embarked upon restoring the gardens to their former glory.
​
As recently as April 2022, the York-stone and herringbone brick paths have been lifted and re-laid and the encroaching hedge, of at least 4 feet thick, had been cut back to reveal the remains of the Hancock garden. Passing through west gate, made to an original Hancock Industries design, it can be seen that the stone sundial is missing, having been damaged and pending repair. The encroaching hedge, adjacent to the York-stone and herringbone brickwork path leading from the west gate, although cut back, had obliterated the rose border and the rose bed and climbing rose against the west end of the house are no longer there.
​
However, the piece of topiary is still in situ, although broader in circumference than in the photograph in Ralph’s book. The front or south side of the house has a magnificent Wisteria climbing along the wall and the current owner has planted Irises in the flower border against the house, unaware that they were one of Hancock’s favourite plants. The York-stone and herringbone brickwork path leading from the south side of the house to a large pair of wrought-iron gates against the Newchapel Road, is flanked by dry-stone walling and flower beds. Over the years, the soil has begun to push the walling outward toward the path and the walling is now in need of stabilising before it collapses. To the east of the south gate there is a beech tree and there would have been one to the west for symmetry but that had been taken down before the current owner’s time.
​
The grassed area extending east of the path has several specimen trees planted in it, a white flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) possibly White Lady, a Weeping Beech (Fagus sylvatica 'Pendula'), several Acers with either pale green or deep red leaves and Camellias. At the far, east end of the garden is large wrought-iron hatch gate. This is flanked on the left side by ornamental Fir trees although the one on the right is missing, again removed before the current owner’s arrival.
​
The hatch gate leads to a low, stone slab bridge supported by steel or iron supports and what would have been another gate adjacent to the Newchapel Road, although as of 2022, it was removed and placed in storage. On the north side of the house there is a lovely red-leaved Acer around which the current owner has planted a stepped, clipped yew hedge, making a feature of the old tree, much as Hancock would have approved. Leaving the grounds of Oat Barns and entering the grounds of Snuff Cottage (once the gardener’s cottage), there is a gated pond area that was originally part of the Oat Barns estate. The north bank of the pond is walled and buttressed in brick whilst the south side has a more natural appearance planted with native water and woodland plants and trees. The gate features four frogs in silhouette along the bottom with five upright bars formed to create bulrushes, each bar with a single clustered spikelet and pair of narrow up-right leaves. Of the six wrought-iron gates associated with Oat Barns (including the north gate that has now be erected in the gardens at Gatehouse Farmhouse), none are the same as each other and only the west gate can be identified as a Hancock gate, appearing in the Hancock Industries wrought-iron catalogue as pattern no.4322, which at the time of its publication (1950) cost £21, although all the other gates do contain many features illustrated in the catalogue.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
A more modern image of Oat Barns
Swinbrook, Oxfordshire
The three images, taken from 'When I Make a Garden' are of the same garden photographed in the village of Swinbrook in Oxfordshire.
​
Shown here, right top, is the garden with a magnificent view of 17th century, St Mary the Virgin Church, Swinbrook. Novelist Nancy Mitford is buried within the churchyard.​ Another view of the garden, main picture. Ralph didn't have to travel far to find the Cotswold stone for use within the dry stone walls used within this garden.​ And, again lower right, we can see the trademark Cotswold stone walls and naturalistic planting that make this garden look like nature itself just took hold.
The Sussex Coast - Ferring
​
The location of this delightful garden has now been revealed. It appears that it was built in 1928/29 for the Hulton Family (Hulton Press and Photo Library) in the village of Ferring, Sussex. Built in the grounds of their house 'Lamorna', the garden existed until the house was demolished in the 1970's and the land made-way for a row of beach front bungalows. Local Ferring historian, Ed Miller, visited the site in February 2009 and confirmed the location. Nothing remains of this formal garden although this drawing from the period just before demolition shows where the garden sat in relation to a modern ariel photograph.​​
Ed Miller, in his 2009 report on the house and garden, made a brief mention of a “R Hancock” as seeking planning permission to build 14 bungalows on land nearby. We surmised that this could be Ralph. In fact, at the time, his daughter, Sheila (Hancock) mentioned that her late father had purchased land in Ferring with the aim of building 14 bungalows on it. And, through that, Ralph had financed his trip to the United States. We have now (January 2025) found a notice in the London Gazette, dated 7th March 1930, which gives details of a notice placed under the Land Registration Act 1925.
The notice reads; Land adjoining Widdicombe (formerly Doneen) West Drive, Ferring, Sussex registered to Clarence Henry Ralph Hancock of Letchworth, Downside Road, Sutton, Surrey.
This small notice confirms what Sheila had suggested and that her father had in deed speculated on the purchase of land to help finance his move to America.
The land is described as adjoining “Widdicombe” which in the 1930’s was a private house that fronted West Street, somewhere between the north and south entrances to Oval Waye. Widdicombe was later, in the 1935 Kelly’s Directory, described as “Ferring Health School”. We are not exactly sure where the land which Ralph purchased lay. But, one can assume it was between West Street and Oval Wave?​​​​ The pictures of Lamorna, below, are reproduced with thanks to Suzanne Blake.​
An aerial view of the undeveloped Ferring showing the location of
many of the large houses, now sadly demolished
Ferring before mass development
Lamorna, front elevation with ancient wellhead
Lamorna, rear elevation with path leading to garden
Bigbury House, Near Canterbury, Kent
In 2010, this house in Kent was identified as having an extensive garden designed and built by Ralph Hancock and Son.
The main feature is a rectangular pool with a small crescent moon plus two side pools - each with their own bridge. There was also a fountain, now gone. Other features, within the garden, include a sunken garden, low Cotswold stone walls and steps, that lead into various areas of the garden and from the house. Ralph's herringbone brick pattern, found at the front entrance, a delightful hand forged wrought iron gate, slab pavers, which are used elsewhere, including Derry and Toms. The most intriguing find were a series of large boulders, which are found at the front of the property, lining the drive and are also scattered hap-hasradly. They appear very similar to stone used at Derry and Toms and within his rockery designs (seen at Chelsea).
​
It is possible that they once formed a rockery but may just prove to have been placed in their positions as accents and planted next to specimen plants?
​
The house was built in 1924 and was the home, until 1981, of Major and Mrs Gracie. Their son confirms that Ralph laid out the ponds and other features in 1947 or 1948. The two images are an ariel photograph of the garden taken in 1979 and a sketch, by Ralph, showing how the final pond/water feature would look. The sketch is signed by Hancock.
The pond is almost exactly as it was when sketched by Ralph in 1947
Bigbury House from the rear garden
with Hancock designed steps
Another view of the steps leading to a swimming pool which is contained within a low Cotswold stone wall
The Hyning, Warton, Lancashire
This recent discovery was formerly the home of the second Earl Peel, Arthur William Ashton Peel (1901-1969). It is now the home of The Order of the Sisters of the Bernardines and has been renamed Hyning Monastery. From recently found newspaper clippings, dated 31st October 1950, this garden has been rediscovered and confirmed as the last garden designed by Ralph Hancock but, completed by Bramley after his father's death in August 1950.
The clippings give details of a court case against the Earl, several builders and Bramley Hancock, who were alleged as to being complicit in an over-spending of £17,000 on renovations to the house, including the garden, for which no licence had been granted. This was contrary to the Defence Regulation. The case against Bramley was dropped and he was discharged. But, the case against the Earl caused questions to be asked in Parliament.
These few images show the garden as it is now. They are, without doubt, clearly of Ralph's design. The bridge is remarkably like the one at Twyn-yr-Hydd, Port Talbot. The walls (of the Moon gate) also have a similar appearance. And, the pathways and wrought iron appear identical to those found at nearly all of Ralph's post-war gardens.
This style of wrought iron gate can be found in the catalogue of Hancock Industries
This bridge is almost identical to one at Margam
Another ancient wellhead. A popular feature of Hancock designed gardens
Flagstone pathway used extensively by Ralph
A heap of abandoned and rusty wrought iron work from Hancock Industries
Lake House, Dormans Park, East Grinstead, Surrey
Another recent discovery of a Hancock Garden is that of Lake House Near East Grinstead by the Felbridge and District History Group.
During a presentation and talk to Group members on local garden designers, which included Gertrude Jekyll and Ralph Hancock, and which took place on 29th September 2024, a mention was made about a set of impressive gates which had been included within the Hancock Industries catalogue.​
The impressive gates installed at Lake House, Dormans Park
The description of which reads: “The photograph shows two pairs of gates, with brick pilasters, 14ft wide and 9ft high, together with 30ft of ornamental railing, 3ft high set on a 2ft 6ins high brick wall.”
At the back of the catalogue are testimonials given by recipients of Hancock wrought ironwork from around the world. One such testimonial is from J.S,T, JP of East Grinstead which states “the gates are truly beautiful”.
Research by the History Group connected the initials to that of John Stanleigh Turner JP of Lake House who had commissioned the gates that appeared in the catalogue.
Turner had moved to Lake House just after World War Two. The property had been built as part of the Bellaggio Estate at the end of the 19th century and was originally known as “House by the Lake.”
The house has recently been renovated and photographs of the property show that the Hancock wrought-iron gates and railings are still in situ. Photographs of the garden show a shallow, sunken, round pond with a statue or fountain at its centre, accessed off shallow steps leading from a terraced area at the back of the house, all very reminiscent of Hancock garden designs. Aerial photographs also hint at a possible landscaped garden under what is today a large expanse of lawn; perhaps another lost Hancock garden?
The impressive gates as they are now
The Ornamental pond and statue
Lake House; rear garden
Does the lawn hide a lost garden?
United States of America
95 Wildwood Road, Ridgewood, New Jersey USA
​
Thanks to William Bartlett PhD, a local Ridgewood resident and NBC Staff Historian. We now have confirmation of another lost Hancock garden.
Retail magnate, JJ Newberry - owner of the five-and-dime chain of stores - built 95 Wildwood Road in 1929. The beautiful Normandy Tudor style home is made of brick, granite and limestone and also features oak timbers to give it that old-world look.
It is very typical of the time and representative of the grand Tudor homes and universities built during the period.
Although modernised with up to date equipment and features, the massive property still retains large impressive rooms with high ceilings and leaded windows. It also retains many of the features from when Newberry had it constructed such as polished wooden floors and beautiful wood panelling. A Tudor style fireplace can be found in one of the larger rooms as well as a feature staircase in the hall.
95 Wildwood Road from "When I Make a Garden" 1936
95 Wildwood Road 90 years later
The feature staircase and beautiful wood floors. One of the larger rooms with the impressive Tudor fireplace which resembles the Tudor arches found in the Gardens of the Nations and at Derry & Toms
Situated on over one acre of private property in the 'Heights' Section of Ridgewood, the house comes with a lovely mature garden. It is very likely that Ralph constructed the gardens soon after the main house was constructed and not too long after he arrived in the United States. Hancock’s own home was only a few miles away in Montclair, New Jersey.
The modern image of the front of the house (above) shows what were mere saplings in the early 1930’s are now mature specimens. The path leading up to the front door is typical Hancock in design as are the paths and stone constructions at the rear and side of the house. It is difficult to see from the modern photographs whether any of the planting is by Ralph. As over 90 years has passed since the gardens were originally laid out, one can only imagine that very few of the living things he planted still exist? A path in the rear garden contains stonework laid by Ralph Hancock The rear of the house with paths and wrought iron typical of Hancock’s design. Just visible to the left of the image a small round pond can be seen. It is also not too clear from the images, whether the wrought iron work seen at the side and rear of the house is from Ralph’s own workshop. But, the style is again very typical Hancock in look and it would have been very unlikely that Ralph wouldn’t have offered his wealthy client the full package.
From 2018 when the house was onsite for nearly $2million
From 2024, photo by Andrew Hull
155 Wildwood Avenue, Montclair, New Jersey
One of Ralph's earliest commissions after he arrived in America, was for Lydia Duff Gray, a New York socialite who lived in Montclair, New Jersey.
​
A detailed report about the house can be found elsewhere in this website or here. Hancock was responsible form much of the hardscaping and appeared to have collaborated with fellow Landscape Architect, Frederic Leubuscher. A reprinted version of Hancock"s pamphlet "English Gardens in America" has, on the cover, a reference to Frederic.
​
Below are a selection of images of the gardens from 2024 taken by Andrew Hull.
The main entrance with wrought iron
gates and pillars by Ralph Hancock
Curved brickwork
by Ralph Hancock
Cotswold stone walls with Box hedges
Close-up of the Cotswold wall