Linton Park, Nr Maidstone, England

Linton has a very fine early 19th-century landscape park. The approach to the house is from the north, along a perfectly straight avenue of beech, sycamore, and recent plantings of lime at the southern end of the drive. All this area had been badly storm damaged. The descent at the lower end, nearest the house, is very steep and so the ‘carriage road' winds round to one side.

The house overlooks a wide stretch of parkland. There are clumps of indigenous trees, mostly beech, chestnut and oak, with an under-storey of rhododendron, laurel and magnolias. There are also solitary specimens of cedar, copper beech, oak, Austrian pine, cypresses, larch, holm oak, plane, Nothofagus obliqua and fern-leaved beech. The large lake in the centre of the park is the part of the park still owned by Mr Daubeny (see history events).

A Wellingtonia avenue extends from the mansion westwards to the small parish church and the village of Linton. Below this is an area of overgrown woodland (known as the Pinetum), in the depth of which is a small and rather dilapidated pretty Victorian stone gazebo.

To the east of the house the parkland is very ornamental with mown grassland and a predominance of cedars and redwoods. There is also a series of stone steps flanked by yew hedges and isolated Irish yews, two Grecian-style temples and a large area of grass with six newly-planted cedars. Unfortunately the steps lead nowhere to the north. A modern timber fence, backed by conifers, cuts across the walkway. Behind this are several small modern houses, built on the site of the original kitchen garden, and the famed Victorian Dutch garden.

Immediately to the south of the mansion is a balustraded gravel terrace. This leads to a small rosery immediately to the west of the house. To the south is the remains of an elaborate Victorian terraced garden with panoramic views over the lake beyond. This steep terraced slope now consists of a plain but dramatic sequence of slopes, flights of steps, grassed terraces and landings, leading down to a perfect grass circle with central stone sun-dial flanked by Irish yews and a wide gravel path. To either side of this feature are overgrown shrubberies containing many exotics. Especially notable is a large collection of magnolias. Also of interest are a Victorian ice-house and a dogs' graveyard.

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

An early to mid-19th-century garden with significant surviving features influenced by the horticultural writer and designer, J C Loudon, set within a park of 18th- and 19th-century origin.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Linton Park lies off the east side of the A229, about 5 kilometres south of Maidstone and adjacent to the village of Linton. The registered site, which comprises 12 hectares of ornamental gardens and a further 120 hectares of parkland, woodland, and associated farm buildings and domestic land, occupies the crest and south-facing slope of a greensand ridge which descends steeply at first and then more gently as it approaches the levels of the River Beult valley, one kilometre beyond the site's southern boundary. The rectangular-shaped site, largely enclosed from view by internal boundary woodland belts, is bounded on all sides by roads: to the west and north by the busy A229 and B2163, and to the south and east by minor lanes from which occasional views of the parkland may be glimpsed. Beyond the roads, the village of Coxheath lies to the north while to the west, east, and south is a farmed landscape of small fields and hedgerows dominated by orchards. The house forms a prominent landmark from the south.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

J P Neale, Views of the Seats 5, (1829)

Country Life, 5 (11 February 1899), pp 176-80; 99 (29 March 1946), pp 578-81; (5 April 1946), pp 624-7

Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener, (6 December 1859), pp 143-5; (13 December 1859), pp 160-3; (7 May 1861), pp 101-2; (3 December 1861), pp 185-8; (10 December 1861), pp 218-20; (17 December 1861), pp 238-40)

J Newman, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald (1969), pp 366-7

Inspector's Report: Linton Park, (English Heritage 1988)

Linton Park, Appraisal and Proposals, (Sell, Wade Postins 1988)

Maps

W Mudge, Map of Kent, 1" to 1 mile, 1801

Tithe map for Linton parish, 1841 (Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone) [reproduced in Sell, Wade Postins 1988]

OS Surveyor's drawings, 1797-1801 (British Library Maps)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1868, published 1872; 2nd edition 1896; 3rd edition 1909; 1938 edition

OS 25" to 1 mile: 2nd edition published 1909 [part of site only]; 1938 edition

Archival items

J C Loudon, Remarks on the improvements proposed to be made at Linton Place, 1825 (No 831), (Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery)

Plant orders, catalogues etc are listed in index of documentation accompanying Sell, Wade Postins report (1988).
 

Description written: July 1997

Amended: January 1999; March 2004

Edited: November 2003