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Project
The Mulberry Garden Project at Bateman's
An invitation to the Kiplings' private family garden.
This 2‑year project aims to capture the original spirit of the Mulberry Garden, designed in 1902, recreating the look and feel of this space as it would have been in Rudyard Kipling’s day. By restoring one of the most significant garden rooms, our vision is to bring the garden’s history to life, creating a more immersive experience for visitors throughout the year. By drawing on historic photographs and written accounts, the project will transform the space to reflect its past, while improving sustainability and accessibility, helping it remain a welcoming and loved part of Bateman’s for years to come.
Historical Context
The Mulberry Garden Project has been many years in the making, with extensive research undertaken to better understand how the garden would have looked during Rudyard and Caroline Kipling's time at Bateman's.
Head Gardener, Len Bernamont, our then Curator Carien Kramer and Garden Historian and National Trust volunteer, Celia Davies have carefully researched and studied historic photographs, journals, diaries and published sources including letters exchanged by the Kipling's, to build a detailed picture of the garden's historic layout and character.
With the research and design phases now complete, the project is moving into its next stage. Work on the garden is due to begin in early autumn and is expected to be completed by spring 2028. The restoration aims to re-imagine the space closer to its historic character, helping visitors to experience how the garden acted as an important part of Bateman's during the Kipling's time.
The Kipling Family
Having bought Bateman’s in 1902, within weeks they quickly set about creating a haven where Rudyard and Caroline could work and receive guests and where their children Elsie and John could run freely and explore the garden and countryside. Today it continues to be a place of solace and inspiration.
Global Influences
Born in India and having travelled extensively throughout his life, there are many global influences to be found in both the collection, and the garden Kipling had created. Written references show Kipling’s love of gardens from India, Japan, France and Brazil; Rudyard and Caroline’s first garden being in Vermont where they originally planned to settle. Plants of significance and periods of seasonal interest from some of these far-flung destinations are reflected in this new garden design.
Arts and Crafts
With little archival evidence to go by, we have gained deeper insights into the fine detail of the original design through analysis of the planting we can see in four black and white photographs, known written accounts of the time and entries in the Kipling’s visitor book, including of a visit from one William Robinson, a close friend and author of The English Flower Garden (1883), which included contributions from his long-time friend and leading proponent of the Arts & Crafts movement Gertrude Jekyll.
William Robinson was one of the first to push-back against the austere uniformity and rigid structure of Victorian and Edwardian borders and bedding designs, proposing a more naturalistic approach to garden design, often blending formal structure with loose, romantic planting that echoed natures way. We see this in many areas of Bateman’s Garden today, blurring the boundary between the garden and hay meadows beyond. Robinson’s visit on 3rd August 1906 is noted as “Lunch W. Robinson - (Stylish flower border) suggests alterations in garden”.
William Morris, leader of the Arts and Crafts movement, lived within travelling distance, and many design features synonymous with his, and others reappropriation of artisan and naturalistic features can be still be seen within the garden, from the redesigning and repurposing of vernacular buildings as backdrops to the theatre of the garden, millstones set into fossilised stone paths and terraced garden rooms.
As we begin to attribute more of the garden layout and design to the influences of the Arts & Crafts movement, the new Mulberry garden design confidently reflects many of the characteristics of this style of planting, which sits perfectly with our overall ethos at Bateman’s of gardening with nature.
Project Aims & Benefits
Garden Vision
After over 5 years of constant development of the garden, refreshing borders and recreating planting scheme to better reflect the romantic Arts & Crafts style, the Mulberry Garden Project will be the largest and most significant re-interpretation of a garden room at Bateman’s. Extended seasons of interest and naturalistic planting that promotes biodiversity and supports nature across the whole estate will be a massive step towards creating a whole garden experience that we hope visitors will want to come and see time and time again, making Bateman’s a must-see garden destination in its own right.
Conservation
By recreating one of the most significant garden character areas of the Kipling era, we will vastly improve overall conservation standards within the garden.
Making everyone welcome
We will improve access for all by widening existing paths, re-locating existing and installing additional benches within borders and new pathways
Sustainability and biodiversity
From concept, through procurement, delivery and future management of this design, the project seeks to be as sustainable as possible. We will select plants proven to be resilient to the specific changes in the micro-climate we are experiencing in the Mulberry Garden, reducing the amount of watering required and vastly reducing our energy budget, moving from an annual planting scheme requiring hundreds of plants to be grown in a heated greenhouse to a permanent shrub and herbaceous display.
Every plant will be selected to enhance biodiversity in the garden, through a variety of flower types with a long period of interest from February to November. Future management will be slower and less invasive, many plants having attractive seedheads which will remain on the plants over winter, providing seeds and protection for a wide range of invertebrates, birds and small mammals.
Experiences
This new garden is designed to draw visitors in, with paths and seating within borders creating a more immersive experience through both the design and interpretation of this space
Visitors can walk in Kipling’s footsteps and experience the home of one of the twentieth centuries most famous writers, whose stories continue to bring enjoyment and inspiration across the globe.
The Design
Informed by the research we have carried out and the need to adapt our plant selection to be resilient to changes in climate, the design must perform many roles. Working with our former Senior Gardener, now a garden designer, Fiona Parrott (design@fionaparrott.co.uk), the process of putting all these elements together, whilst capturing the original spirit and look of the original garden was a process of layering concepts, themes and the function the garden in terms of conservation and experiences onto an overall vision.
Accessibility
Being a core function of the new design, we will re-lay and widen all the existing brick paths; moving seating to within the borders whilst creating a new path and additional seating to lead visitors into the heart of the garden, allowing them to be immersed in the lush, romantic planting.
Colour palette
Inspired by Gertude Jekyll’s use of colour and referencing the Arts & Crafts style more generally borders will feature cooler area largely blues, lilacs and other cooler pale colours, graduating through the garden to reds, oranges and vibrant colours in the hotter areas.
Seasonality
A key element of all our planting schemes, we always aim to create interest with colour, scent, and structure throughout the year, many plants fulfilling more than one of these functions giving our visitors a reason to return time and time again as the borders provide a succession of flower and forms in every season.
Every plant with a purpose
Before selecting specific plants, we spent time discussing what function we would want the planting in all areas of this garden to achieve:
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plants clothing the walls – climbing roses, trained fruit trees and clematis
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ephemeral planting that shines for a short while before disappearing – biennials and bulbs such as foxgloves and alliums that pop up and random places
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plants providing structure – shrubs, fruit trees and architectural stems and seedheads
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ethereal planting – often with tall stems and loose fluffy flowerheads e.g. fennel and grasses that can be seen through but blur and shorten the views and may provide soft screening
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Tapestry planting – typical of Arts & Crafts planting style, rather than large drifts of perennials that dominate for a while but end up leaving gaps in the colour scheme, smaller, repeated drifts of plants.
Soil and Plant selection
With changes in our climate being at the forefront of our current thinking, we have had to adapt our plant selection to those plants we believe will be more resilient to extreme weather. In some areas of the garden, they will need to tolerate high temperatures, some areas are prone to frost and all plants will experience periods of extreme draught. We are working with a local supplier to introduce a blended sharp sand and compost mulch which will be both free-draining and moisture retentive.
Working with Nature
Whether shrubs, fruit trees, herbaceous perennials or bulbs, every plant has been chosen to support pollinators and support nature across our garden and the wider estate.
Bringing it all together
The final design is a densely planted, floriferous mix of fruit trees, shrubs, roses, herbaceous perennials, biennials and perennial bulbs. Planted in small drifts with repetitions of similar and contrasting plants and a colour palette that graduates from cooler colours to hot. A romantic, Arts & Crafts style of planting with the ability to withstand our warmer, drier climate. At no point should the viewer be able to see all the garden all at once, with planting designed to create both vistas and secluded secret places. The paths and seating are designed to draw our visitors into the garden and be immersed within it, a place of beauty and privacy as the Kiplings would have experienced it.
A lasting Legacy
The Mulberry Garden project was made possible thanks to generous donations and gifts left in wills. These lasting contributions help the National Trust care for special places like this for future generations. If you'd like to support our work or find out more about leaving a gift in your will, please follow the link below.