‘Norah Lindsay could by her plantings evoke all the pleasures of a flower garden. She captured the essence of midsummer . . . or gave the pith of autumn . . . She lifted herbaceous planting into a poetic category and gave it an air of rapture and spontaneity.’
Russell Page, The Education of a Gardener

In the years between the wars Norah Bourke Lindsay (1873-1948) was a major influence on the course of garden design and planting. She developed her skills in her own magical garden at the Manor House, Sutton Courtenay in Oxfordshire, widely regarded as the most beautiful garden in England. Then, in 1924, facing financial ruin after the collapse of her marriage, she embarked upon a career as a garden designer. Her commissions ranged from the gardens of quiet English manor houses to the grand estates of the country house set, to royal gardens in France, Germany, Italy and Yugoslavia.

She designed gardens for Nancy Astor at Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, the Prince of Wales at Fort Belvedere in Windsor Great Park, the Horners at Mells in Somerset, Nancy Lancaster at both Kelmarsh in Northamptonshire and Ditchley in Oxfordshire, Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan in France, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia at Bled, Princess Aspasia at the Palazzo Contanini Accademia in Venice, and Prince Otto von Bismarck at Friedrichsruh in Germany. She worked with her friend Lawrence Johnston to create the great garden at Hidcote in Gloucestershire. She successfully and deftly gardened in different soils and varied climates across all of England and throughout Europe.

She wrote wistfully to her sister ‘I am a tired and cold business woman! I used to adore lying in bed in a hot bedroom and having nothing to do.’ Nevertheless, it is for her gifted creativity, and her productivity, that we admire her today.

Excerpts

‘A riot of the senses’

Life at Sutton Courtenay 1895-1920

Lady Diana Cooper, the beautiful daughter of Violet, Marchioness of Granby, (later Duchess of Rutland), wrote: ‘The place of all others for romance and gathering rosebuds and making hay and jumping over the moon was Sutton Courtenay. This lovely sixteenth-century (sic) manor house belonged to my Uncle Harry Lindsay and Aunt Norah. There once a year I was allowed to go before I came out. The garden was famous for its imagination and fertility. Flowers literally overflowed everything and drifted off into a wilderness. The house was furnished impeccably “of the date” and lit by acetylene gas that simulated candles to perfection. We ate under a loggia from great bowls of chicken in rice and kedgeree and mushrooms and raspberries and Devonshire cream and gooseberry fool and figs – all in abundance. I would arrive carrying a letter from my mother entrusting me to Aunt Norah’s great care – not too late to bed and above all not to be alone with young men. The chief object of the visit, as I knew and as Aunt Norah knew, was to drift in a boat all day long with one of the Oxford heroes through the reeds and inlets of the Thames which flowed by the garden – a dinghy full of poetry books and sweets and parasols and bathing dresses – and better still (or worse!) in the moonlight with the best loved. So the letter was ignored by my aunt, who was younger much than my mother and did not mind anyway if I came to no good. I loved her very dearly and miss her today. She dressed mostly in tinsel and leopard skins and baroque pearls and emeralds, and her exquisite hands could play the piano with skill and feeling.’

‘These extraordinary events’

The King and Mrs. Simpson

August was the month each year that Philip Sassoon wanted Port Lympne to be at its finest. Norah set out in early August to check on the gardens to be sure they were ready for the impending onslaught of houseguests. This year she packed into a car with Chips Channon and his wife Honor and started the long drive on the road crammed with traffic to Lympne. ‘Of course, they gossiped madly all the way. The usual topics the King and his speech, the King and his yacht trip…The King…The King…The King!’

‘We found Philip, Teeny and the Aberconways walking up the long drive as we arrived. The Duffys [Duff and Diana Cooper], Helen Fitzgerald, the Simpsons, and the Brownlows were there. Diana and Duffy start Tuesday for their holiday motoring, planning to stay with Daisy Fellowes at Cap Martin and then on to join the royal yacht wherever and whenever they are told. Diana is marvellously calm as she hasn’t yet had any orders or plans told her, but she says H.M. has a party at The Fort this weekend, so she’ll probably hear any moment. She is quite delighted at the change from the stale Riviera to the thrill of the Dalmatian coast. But says Duffy can’t stay away long because of his duties and work. I sat by Duffy last night who was exceptionally gay and entertaining. He can be more delightful than anyone and I’m told he is not so violently anti-German as the gossips insist. After dinner I played bridge with him.’

As expected the gossip quietly turned to the King, and the whispered comments [because after all, the Simpson’s were there] talked of nothing but the imminent yacht trip along the Dalmation coast.

When Norah’s sister Madeline received a letter from Norah recounting the weekend chatter she wrote across the back of the letter then filed away her thoughts on the matter: ‘Duff ought to have refused to go with H.M. as Mrs. Simpson was included in the party – and because he was in the government he should have refused to go on this trip. H. M. was so badly served by his friends who never told him the truth. So that he really did believe he could marry her and make her Queen and was shocked when he found he couldn’t – If his friends had really told him the truth and showed him that they did not like her – or think his behaviour wise – then he might have realized what he was doing – but they never attempted to make him understand how utterly unacceptable she was to be his wife –with two divorces already!’ Norah had no idea that her letter would cause such anger in her sister as she concluded her letter with a focus on the other outrage of the moment – the condition of the gardens.

The next morning she continued the letter. ‘We had a lashing gale all day …Then came a fine interval and we all rushed out to see the marsh lying so calm in the pale sunset as if no storms had passed that way. And after dinner there was a feast of beauty. A huge high moon rode in the sky with rags of clouds racing still across her face and she was poised just between a group of inky cypress and again reflected in a silver radiance in the pool below. It was as beautiful as any Italian garden. Then as a last straw the big centre fountain was turned on and the frothy silver creamy water gushed up in a vast plume, it’s edges where the light didn’t reach – tipped in ink. Far away the sea lay like a plate of silver and lights twinkled here and there on the long stretch of pansy velvet dark marsh.’

Norah Lindsay:
The Life and Art of a Garden Designer

A Sampling of Recent Reviews

‘It has taken an American to recognise Norah Lindsay’s worth and Allyson Hayward has done her proud.’
Mary Keen, The Spectator

‘Admirably illustrated and full of letters and forgotten details which are fascinating. It actually contains ideas about gardening which we should all take on board and some historical evidence which is extraordinarily valuable.’
Robin Lane Fox, Financial Times

‘The life Allyson Hayward has threaded together in this book is wonderfully entertaining. It’s the perfect book to settle down with over Christmas.’
Anna Pavord, Independent Magazine

‘…now the spotlight is turned on her with the publication of a biography by Allyson Hayward, Norah Lindsay, the Life and Art of a Garden Designer…she is a misty but hugely important figure in gardening history, and one which Hayward has done a sterling job of bringing into focus.’ [To read this review in its entirety click here]
Stephen Lacey, Daily Telegraph

‘This captivating, fulsomely illustrated study of a singular woman is the result of painstaking research which has revealed that Norah was much more canny and businesslike than her image suggests….the life story is a riot of fun and colour, right up until the end.’
No. 9 in Tim Richardson’s Top Ten Gardening Books of the Year, Daily Telegraph

‘This book will appeal to anyone fascinated as much by the grandee lifestyle in the first half of the twentieth century as by the grand gardens of that era. The two themes are inextricably linked in Allyson Hayward’s riveting account.’
British House and Garden magazine

‘An intimate portrait of upper-class life in the first half of the twentieth century, told almost exclusively from the letters, archives and conversations of Lindsay and her circle, and illustrated with a fine collection of then-and-now photographs’.
Times Literary Supplement

‘Expensive at £35 but worth every penny. Beautiful..ideal for the coffee table and for leafing through.’
Belfast News Letter

‘Full of wonderful photographs.’
Ham & High

‘A fascinating glimpse into social history as well as gardening.’
Oxford Times

‘This is a book to be read in terms of biography, for Norah was someone who moved at the heart of the beau monde from the Edwardian period to post 1945…a beautiful piece of book production.’
Sir Roy Strong, Country Life

‘Hayward spent 10 years on the trail of her subject, and the book is a keeper.’ [To read this review in its entirety click here]
Adrian Higgins, Washington Post

‘Some people resuscitate old gardens imperilled by neglect. But it’s a garden designer that Wellesley historian Allyson Hayward has rescued from oblivion with the terrific biography Norah Lindsay: The Life and Art of a Garden Designer.’
Carol Stocker, Boston Globe

‘Allyson Hayward’s marathon of research has yielded photographic treasures…with immaculate references and a list of well over one hundred garden clients. Hayward’s achievement can only be (rather breathlessly) admired; her book is essential for anyone interested in these famous gardens, and she has ensured that Lindsay must take her place in the twentieth-century story.’
Jane Brown, Garden History Society Journal

‘Allyson Hayward’s superb new biography goes a long way to demystify Norah’s brilliant career and introduce us to her coterie of friends…Norah’s bubbling personality, wit and charm all come alive in this stunning book.’
Judith Tankard, Hortus

‘…biographer Allyson Hayward followed the path of Lindsay, who travelled in a gypsy-like fashion from one garden site to another for the remaining twenty years of her life. The author expertly creates in this book a vivid portrait of Lindsay who so quickly established an international reputation for her landscapes.’
Chicago Botanic Garden

‘Hayward’s book is based on diaries and letters kept by Lindsay’s family and friends. It describes a time between the wars when life consisted of lawn parties, tennis matches, hunt weekends, race weeks, balls and lots of shopping and travel.’
Susan Reimer, Baltimore Sun

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