A Walk Around Wotton House

Not too far from Guildford is Wotton House, once the home of the Evelyn family which included the 17th-century diarist, politician and scientist John Evelyn. I went for a post-Easter walk around the footpaths leading past the house today, intrigued by reports of its follies and landscape features and not sure whether it was possible to glimpse any from the walks. It wasn't, though behind one of the estate cottages on the drive to the house it was possible to see a long brick wall terminated by a pair of little Gothick belvederes, if such you can call them:

The outside of the house, and the urns in the drive, sport a charming range of faces, grotesques and gryphons:

 

 



I thought it would be a shame to go without making any effort to see the garden features, so without expecting anything very much I asked at the hotel reception whether that might be possible. 'Of course', said the girl on the desk much to my surprise, 'Just go through the French doors along to the right and wander around the garden', so I did. There is a Temple erected by John Evelyn himself and his brother George, adorned with a variety of now-rather damaged statues, none the worse for being a bit battered:

 

Meanwhile, just to the west of the house was a delightful Grotto:

Back inside the house, I passed this luridly lit Gothic hallway. It made me reflect how it might have been all very well in the 19th century, had you enough money, to build a house that looked like a cross between a church and a stage set for a Wagner opera, smothered with marble and encaustic tiles, but it must have been absolutely exhausting to live with. Wotton House actually isn't like that - not another Tyntesfield - as this is the only Gothic Revival chunk I saw.

 Perched on the hill north of the house is this cottage complete with a belltower, which reminded me of Portmeirion. Crying out to become a Landmark holiday let, it is:

And the last call was at the delightful, albeit locked, church to the north on the other side of the Dorking road. I found this little cherub on a tombstone, imprisoned behind rails:

Wotton is very much not a Gothic Garden - it's one of those places where there are elements of what will definitely become Gothic Gardening some decades later, but there is no sense of an interaction with the landscape which binds the individual elements together in gloomful exuberance. There is, however, a very amusing collection of features which I was very glad to have the chance to see.