Watcombe (Brunel) Park, (also known as Watcombe Park and Brunel Manor), Newton Abbot, England

Brunel's Hidden Kingdom

The last few years have stimulated a new interest in Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The many events of Brunel 200 commemorated his birth in 1806, while a recent television poll of ‘Great Britons’ placed him second in the list – next to Winston Churchill. It might seem that Brunel’s life had been thoroughly explored, that all that needed to be said had already been spoken.

Yet one big gap remained in the story of Brunel’s life – the twelve years spent in assembling and laying out Watcombe Park in Devon. Perhaps this is not surprising, given the multi-faceted achievement of his short life, so well described in Rolt’s biography of 1957. There was so much else to be fastened upon that there is only one mention of Watcombe in the index and little more than one page in the text. In that passage Watcombe was no more than the lost dream, cast aside in the urgency to complete Great Eastern. 'After 1855 the notebooks contain fewer and fewer references to Watcombe, for by this time Brunel’s last enterprise had become all consuming and the dream of a peaceful retirement to the West Country was driven ever further into the background of his thoughts.'

From this passage it appeared that Watcombe Park had been ‘written off’ as one of Brunel’s few failures and misjudgements; though Tom Rolt’s widow assured me that her husband was conscious of Watcombe’s significance and was resolved to research it. The ill-health that led to his death intervened.

In recent years Professor R.A. Buchanan, University of Bath, has become the leading authority on Brunel. In his 2002 biography he set out to modify some of the misjudgements and to fill some of the gaps in Rolt’s biography, recording his amazement that such a ‘powerful and elegant’ book should have been researched and written in eighteen months. In Buchanan’s Brunel there are no less than six references to Watcombe in a variety of contexts - noting for example that Brunel resembled many other leading engineers in aspiring to ‘a place in the country’ as a symbol of success. But the phrase ‘he bought the estate at Watcombe in Devon’ tends to give an impression of a place ‘ready-made’ though in fact it was assembled with difficulty over a number of years.

It is perhaps inevitable that for authors recording Brunel’s total achievement his landscaping venture should appear of marginal interest. What is more surprising has been the almost total lack of recognition by local historians. The standard work on Torquay by Percy Russell (1960) describes in detail Brunel’s contribution to the town’s development through bringing the railway to Torquay and on to Dartmouth. On Watcombe, however, there are only these few dismissive lines: 'he planned his retirement there, and is said to have gone so far as to construct the foundations of a large residence.'

Professor Buchanan notes the ‘valuable insights’ and ‘perceptive comments’ in the works of two descendants: Celia Noble’s The Brunels, Father and Son (1938) and Cynthia Gladwyn’s The Isambard Brunels (1971) The earlier biography by Brunel’s son Isambard, The Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer, (1870) has been well described as ‘an act of filial piety’ and also as ‘a rather pedestrian publication.’ However it is here, in one or two places, where one can pick up a sense of how significant Watcombe became to Brunel himself.

• ‘There can be little doubt that the happiest hours of his life were spent in walking about in the gardens with his wife and children, and discussing the condition and prospects of his favourite trees.’ 
• ‘The improvement of his property was his chief delight.’ 
• The arrangement of his plantations ‘gave him unfailing pleasure.’

This new study, Brunel’s Hidden Kingdom, describes in detail how Brunel assembled his land, how he planned his improvements, how he planted his trees. As he stressed - when writing on Christmas Eve 1847 for a suitable gardener - the chosen man’s task would be ‘... the formation of a park where all is to be done.’ The man selected was Alexander Forsyth, at the time engaged on the tree-planting to embellish the ‘gothic wonderland’ of Alton Towers. Forsyth was one of the uncelebrated heroes of Victorian gardening: Brent Elliott, the RHS historian, is ‘glad to see Forsyth getting some sympathetic attention.’

Brunel’s landscaping venture also brought him into contact with some better known names in Victorian gardening. He probably received advice from William Nesfield who had taken over at Kew in 1844. He would have benefited, too, from the plant-hunting prowess of William Lobb, who brought back many of the specimens to be cultivated in the famous Veitch tree nurseries at Exeter. (The Rolle estate at Bicton, laid out by the Veitch family, was already demonstrating what could be achieved in the friendly climate of the West Country.)

Brunel died aged 53 in 1859 with his house un-built, but with nearly twelve years of shaping and planting accomplished. Brunel’s Hidden Kingdom has many photographs – the earliest dating back to around 1861 – recording that achievement. Fortunately there are two quite detailed descriptions of Watcombe in The Gardeners’ Chronicle, in 1882 and 1887, which also add considerable detail. The second article, in particular, notes the artistry with which various tree types had been assembled ‘a good illustration of what may be done in that direction when the planter knows what he is about.’ Artistry also appeared in the skill by which the visitor was exposed to ‘the unexpected’ – an important quality in landscape design in the days of the Picturesque. ‘In fact one of the features of Watcombe is that at every turn something unexpected presents itself to the eye.’

The book concludes with a brief description of Watcombe’s future after Brunel’s death. For a time the estate was well-maintained, especially in the hands of the Wrights, a Nottingham banking family. But misfortunes came: the eldest son was killed in the Second Afghan War, and by 1900 the bank itself was in deep trouble. The heartland of the estate has been preserved, though most outlying areas have now been built upon. In 1987 part of the original landscape was registered as a Historic Park, and the following year Torbay Council designated a more extensive area as a Watcombe Park Conservation Area. The Great Storm of 1990 caused considerable damage, to some extent mitigated through a grant from Task Force Trees. The book concludes that Brunel’s Watcombe Park has been undervalued for years.

‘Yet it remains the most personal of all memorials of Brunel - more personal than stations and statues and stained glass windows. His Great Britain was recovered from the Falkland Isles and brought home to Bristol to be restored. Surely it should be possible to salvage Watcombe Park for posterity.’  (Geoff Tudor, 2006)

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

Mid 19th century parkland, arboretum and gardens laid out by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his head gardener Alexander Forsyth with advice from William Andrews Nesfield, many of the principal features surviving substantially unaltered from 1859.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Watcombe is situated about 4 kilometres north of Torquay and 0.5 kilometres south-west of the coastal village of Maidencombe. The A379 road from Torquay north to Teignmouth runs through the site, the majority of which lies to the west of the road. Covering about 27 hectares, the site comprises about 6 hectares of formal and informal gardens associated with the house, and a further 21 hectares of woodland garden, arboretum, pinetum and protected coastal land. The site occupies a south-facing valley, with the house standing on high ground towards its head. The woodland garden was established on steep slopes facing west, south-east and south which afford views south and east to the sea, with a further area of ornamental planting on the south-facing ridge to the east of the Teignmouth road. The site is bounded by mid and late 20th century suburban development with the exception of the tree belt to the east of Watcombe Heights Road, which adjoins protected coastal land at Giant Rock.

REFERENCES

I Brunel, The Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel Civil Engineer (1870), p 508

J Horticulture and Cottage Gardener (1871) Gardeners' Chronicle, ii (1882), pp 75-76; ii (1887), pp 463-464

W H Grant, Memoirs (1922), p 144

B Elliott, Victorian Gardens (1986), p 94

New Civil Engineer, (29 January 1987), pp 14-15

Country Life, 182 (31 March 1988), pp 140-141

Watcombe Park: A Survey of the Landscape, management plan, (Debois Landscape Survey Group 1990)

M J Tooley (ed), William Andrews Nesfield 1794-1881 (1994)

T Gray, The Garden History of Devon An Illustrated Guide to Sources (1995), pp 228-229

Maps

J Grant, Tithe map for St Marychurch parish, 3 chains to 1", 1840 (Devon Record Office)

Day and Son, The Watcombe Estate ... in the County of Devon The Property of the late Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Esquire, 1859 (337/B1025 ME195), (Devon Record Office)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1888, published 1891

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1888, published 1890

    2nd edition revised 1904, published 1906

    1937 edition

Archival items

Brunel MSS (Bristol University Library)

Sale particulars, 1901 (547B/334), (Devon Record Office)

Sale particulars, 1931 (547B/P3139), (Devon Record Office)

Description written: September 1998

Amended: May 1999; May 2000

Edited: July 2000