DESIGNERS AT HOME with their dogs
Bridget Elworthy & Henrietta Courtauld
The entrance to Wardington Manor, just a few hours northwest of London in Oxfordshire, does its best to stay humble. Visitors are cautioned by a faded sign to go ‘very slow’ for dogs and horses, and the Jacobean house reveals itself shyly, set back behind rust-hued gateposts and accessed by a short driveway off the village lane. Its unremarkable side entrance defers to the gravel courtyard with its array of wheelbarrows, tractors, and even the odd pony.
But just a few steps into this sixteenth-century structure fashioned from Horton stone, which was later combined with Arts and Crafts-style reconfigurations in the 1920s, one realises that this is no ordinary country house. There is an explosion of flowers throughout the property: many magnificent cutting gardens are surrounded by high hedges, which have been topiarised into exotic birds. When one steps inside the outdoor entry hall, dazzling blooms continue everywhere, whether merrily clustered in buckets waiting to be arranged or already in romantic bouquets that reflect just the right amount of human touch, from pale pink Japanese anemones in antique silver cups to
