Humphrey Waterfield, 1908–1971

Adapted from Jean Cornell, “A Dual Life: An Assessment of the Gardens Designed by Humphrey Waterfield, 1908–71”, MA in Garden History, University of Buckingham, 2015.

In 1976, Hugh Johnson, writing as Tradescant in The Garden, described Waterfield as: “the most sensitive and original designer of gardens of the last generation”. During his lifetime, Waterfield’s garden, Hill Pasture in Essex and his other designed gardens, were well known and featured in articles in Country Life, Ideal Home, and House & Garden.

Early Life & Education

Derick Humphrey Waterfield was born in August 1908 at Hagley Hall, Rugeley, Staffordshire, the home of his maternal grandfather, John Pritt Gardner, a solicitor and land agent. His mother, Barbara, an only child, was brought up by her father and his unmarried sister. His father and paternal grandfather, Sir Henry Waterfield, were both in the Indian Civil Service. In 1911, when John Pritt Gardner died, Barbara Waterfield inherited £83,500, about £9.2 million today. In 1912, the Waterfields bought Clos du Peyronnet in Menton, on the French Riviera, where they tended to spend the winter, returning to England for the summer. During the First World War, the Waterfields had to remain in Menton, and Humphrey Waterfield became fluent in French.

In 1918–1921, Waterfield went to Templegrove, a prep school, and then to Eton (1922–1926) before reading History at Christchurch College, Oxford (1927– 1930), where he achieved a first class degree. Whilst at Oxford, he decided to become an artist, and studied at Ruskin College with Albert Rutherston (1881–1953), before moving on to the Slade in the early 1930s. His early paintings were well received.

Colour photograph of Humphrey Waterfield painting in his garden at Hill Pasture, undated. Giles Waterfield Archive

Nancy Tennant and Hill Pasture Garden

In 1933, Humphrey met Agnes “Nancy” Dalrymple Tennant (1897–2005). He was twenty-five and she was thirty-seven. For almost forty years, they had an affectionate, but platonic relationship. In 1935, Waterfield decided to move from London to Essex. He found a piece of land of about three acres, later extended to six acres, in Broxted, near Thaxted and this became Hill Pasture. The architect and furniture designer Ernö Goldfinger (1902–1987) designed a onestorey studio, which Waterfield moved into on 1 April 1938. The garden had been started already in 1936, well before the house was built. In 1957, a second storey was added to the property.

Second World War

Sadly, in 1940, Humphrey’s parents, who were still living in Menton, took their own lives. Humphrey, who was a conscientious objector, joined the Quakers’ Friends Ambulance Unit and was deployed to the Middle East, Algeria, and lastly France, where he was taken prisoner when driving an ambulance of wounded English and German soldiers. He spent six months in an unofficial prisoner of war camp in Strasbourg. During the war, Nancy tended the garden at Hill Pasture as best she could, although the house itself was then rented out. The letters she wrote to Humphrey during the war form part of the Giles Waterfield Archive and contain many references to her visits to Hill Pasture. Humphrey Waterfield’s war diaries are in a private collection.

Development of Hill Pasture

From 1945 until his death in 1971, Humphrey Waterfield kept a garden notebook—also now held in a private collection—which covers the development of his garden at Hill Pasture. His paintings also documented how the garden developed. Articles reveal that Waterfield preferred the colours of the natural landscape, particularly white. He described how he planted his cherry trees so that wilder ones were near the garden boundary, and what he called the more “sophisticated” ones were closer to the house. Like William Morris, he preferred “species” to what he called “improved” varieties, single flowers rather than double. Muted shades were his preference.

Waterfield as an artist Waterfield’s

greatest regret was that he never achieved success as a painter. In common with many artists after the war, notably people he knew like Cedric Morris and Edward Bawden, his type of painting was no longer fashionable. During his lifetime, he had just one solo exhibition, which took place in 1962 at the Adams Gallery, London. This was arranged by Clive Bell, who spent winters at Clos du Peyronnet. Waterfield lived principally on private income and on some garden commissions. Fortunately, a neighbour, William Palmer Mellen, invested money for him in shares from which he accrued considerable profits.

Other Gardens

There is no comprehensive list of Waterfield’s commissions, as his files were destroyed after his death. What is known has been pieced together from articles and memoirs. Garden design never interfered too heavily with his life: for instance, he turned down a suggestion that he might like to be involved in the landscaping of the new Essex University, as he did not wish to waste time in meetings and bureaucracy. We do know, however, that he worked on the following gardens: Clos du Peyronnet; Grey’s Court, Henley-on- Thames; Abbots Ripton Hall, Huntingdon; The Chace, Ugley, Bishop’s Stortford; Horham Hall, Thaxted, Essex; Val Rahmeh, Menton; and Villa Colfranco, Lucca, Italy.