Chelwood Vachery (also known as Chelwood Vetchery)

Chelwood Vachery is approached from the A22, along a 400 metre tarmacadam and rolled-gravel drive. The site is entered from the north-east through 2 metre high, double-leaved, wrought iron gates, hung on red-brick piers topped by stone acorn finials. Decorative, curved brick walls flanking the gates extend as a holly hedge and ditch to form the site boundary on the south-east. Immediately inside and on the north-west side of the gates is a gate lodge with low eaves, tiled roof and garden with lawn, a mixed border, rhododendrons and conifers, bounded on the south by a low picket fence.

From the lodge, the drive divides around a triangular grassed area. The western arm continues for 50 metres to where adjoining side roads on the north side, with views over rhododendron glades on the west, lead to converted stable buildings. From this junction, the drive bears south-west for 20 metres before turning east in a downward curve and passing the West Wing (dating from the late-20th-century) to arrive at the sunken forecourt (50 metres x 30 metres). This is on the north-east front of the mansion, now (2005) used for car parking.

From a path on the south side of the triangular grassed area, a flight of curving stone steps with low stone retaining walls (now, 2005, blocked by a fallen tree) descends to the north side of the courtyard, joining it at the west end of a row of six brick garages. Steps up from the east side of the forecourt lead to a former kitchen wing, now converted to residential use, with another sunken forecourt. This is also the entrance to a first floor 20th-century extension to the mansion, the Red House, built behind and to the south-east of the kitchen wing.

The southern arm of the drive continues for 60 metres, passing a reconstructed 13th-century building on its east side before sloping downhill in a westerly direction for 20 metres to enter the kitchen forecourt. From the kitchen wing, the drive continues in an easterly curve for 40 metres to skirt the wall of a kitchen garden, with entrances to the late-20th-century Nettlefolds on the north side of the wall and the Garden House on the east. The drive then turns south for 120 metres to reach Chelwood Vachery House and Home Farmhouse.

From the south front of the mansion, double doors open onto a central court (around 10 metres x 8 metres) paved with brick and stone in a circular pattern. From here there are views across Guthrie's garden terraces to a mature Scots Pine on a lawn below and to the South Downs beyond. West of the court is a grassed terrace, approximately 12 metres long with flower borders (now, 2005, separated from the court by planting).

East of the court, a flight of eight, semi-circular stone steps leads up and through a double-leaved wrought iron gate, hung on brick piers with brick retaining walls, as illustrated in Gardens for Small Country Houses (Jekyll and Weaver, 1912), to a 40 metre tarmac-surfaced path bounded on its south side by a grass border and a low stone retaining wall. The path runs the length of the south side of the east front of the mansion and then past the gardens to the rear of the former kitchen wing and Red House. These gardens (now, 2005, lawn and shrubs) are laid out on the site of a 1930s rose garden (illustrated by Nettlefold), possibly replacing the rose garden surrounded by a pergola, proposed by Guthrie. From them, a series of five flights of steps lead down southwards for around 120 metres along a flower bordered grass walk to a shrubbery and arboretum.

At the bottom of the first flight of steps, a 60 metre grass walk leading east at an angle of 45 degrees remains to mark the site of a bowling or evergreen alley proposed by Guthrie (Nettlefold). Remnants of a yew hedge originally bordering the walk survive on the west side, the east side having been replaced (2005) by a conifer hedge, which screens the site of the former kitchen garden.

From the south side of the central, paved court on the top terrace, semi-circular stone steps lead down to a second terrace. This was originally grass with flower borders (Guthrie plans, Nettlefold), but now (2005) the grass is divided into separate compartments on the east side of the path by low wooden trellises and terminated by a clipped yew and conifer hedge.

On the west side of the steps, the grass terrace continues along the south side of the garden of the West Wing to a downward flight of 13 stone steps with stone retaining walls, from the top of which there are views over an informal garden on the west and south-west of the mansion. The flight of steps from the central court descend a further flight to a large, rectangular grassed area (around 70 metres x 30 metres) with a central mature Scots Pine on a knoll, the site of Guthrie's former croquet lawn.

On the south side of the croquet lawn, central steps descend to a further grass terrace backed by high stone retaining walls with bastions planted with yellow conifers. Lily pools and water channels (now, 2005, stagnant or dry) with stone surround (30 metres long) are laid out on each side of the terrace, as shown on Guthrie's plans and illustrated in Gardens for Small Country Houses. The water source, a stone lion's head above a small pool by steps a few metres east of the east channel, is now, 2005, also dry.

Below and to the south-west of the water terrace is a tarmac-surfaced tennis court with wire mesh fencing (around 20 metres x 40 metres) and surrounded by black gravel paths (late-20th-century). On the north side of the tennis court the path runs on a raised walk below a retaining wall (now, 2005, in need of repair), the walk leading eastwards to a limestone rockery. This is illustrated by Nettlefold (1930s) with immature conifers and rock plants, but is now, 2005, overgrown.

The formal terraces are surrounded to their north-west, west and south with shrubberies, rhododendron glades and the arboretum with mature conifers developed by Samuel. Amongst the planting on the west side beginning 40 metres from the mansion is a chain of rocky pools, waterfalls and streams (now, 2005, dry). On the south-west boundary of the site, around 250 metres from the mansion, a 1.5 metre wire fence with a gate allowing access to adjoining Vachery Wood. This also demarcates the land shared by the private residences of Chelwood Vachery with the woodland owned by the Ashdown Forest Trust.

Approximately 200 metres south of the mansion, within Vachery Wood, Gavin Jones' spring-fed, artificially constructed gorge begins as a small stream between sandstone rocks, as illustrated by Nettlefold (and reproduced in The London Illustrated News, 1936). The gorge follows a course of around 250 metres via waterfalls and pools, formed by imported limestone boulders, to a string of lakes on the Mill Brook which forms the site's south-west boundary. The sandstone and limestone boulders used for the gorge's construction remain intact (2005), but are obscured by woodland trees and groundcover. The four lakes together with sluices and dams are similarly intact but overgrown, with no visible evidence to indicate the position of the former boathouse, bridge and ‘Three Bears Hut' depicted in a 1930s photograph (Nettlefold).

Description written: March 2005