Munstead Wood, Godalming, England

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

The late 19th-/early 20th-century home and garden created and lived in by Gertrude Jekyll for over fifty years, the house designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Munstead Wood lies about one kilometre south-east of Godalming, on a north-facing slope of the valley of the River Wey. The ground is generally level but slopes gently down towards the north- west of the site. The original roughly six hectare site of Munstead Wood is triangular in shape, forming an acute angle at its western end. It is bounded along its south-west side by the B2130 Brighton Road and along the south-east side by Munstead Heath Road, the triangle being closed along its north side by the partly unmade Heath Lane. The western tip of the triangle, which was never part of the Munstead Wood grounds and is occupied by a house called Crossways, is excluded from the area here registered.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

The Garden 23, (1883), pp 298-9

Gardeners' Chronicle, i (1890), pp 133-4; i (1914), pp 101-2

G Jekyll, Wood and Garden Notes and Thoughts, Practical; and Critical, of a Working Amateur (1899, reprinted 1981)

G Jekyll, Home and Garden Notes and Thoughts, Practical and Critical, of a Worker in Both (1900, reprinted 1995), pp 13-39

J Leyland (editor), Gardens Old and New 2, (1905) 

G Jekyll and L Weaver, Gardens for Small Country Houses (1912), pp 36-45

L Weaver, Houses and Gardens by E L Lutyens (1913), pp 12-19

H Tipping, English Gardens (1925), pp 239-48

J Brown, Gardens of a Golden Afternoon (1982), pp 33-41

S Festing, Gertrude Jekyll (1991)

S King, Munstead Wood, Godalming, Surrey, guidebook, (1994)

J Tankard and M Wood, Gertrude Jekyll at Munstead Wood (1996)

M Tooley and P Arnander, Gertrude Jekyll, Essays on the Life of a Working Amateur (1996)

Maps

Tithe map for Godalming parish, 1844 (Surrey History Centre)

Munstead Wood Survey, (RCHME 1991)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 2nd edition published 1920

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1870, published 1872; 2nd edition published 1897; 3rd edition published 1916

Illustrations

Helen Allingham, Watercolours (Godalming Museum)
 

Description written: December 1999

Amended: May 2003

Edited: September 2002