Sezincote

About Sezincote

Sezincote is a unique and extraordinary Indian house set amidst the Cotswold Hills. The architecture is in the Mughal style of Rajasthan, with a central dome, minarets, peacock-tail windows, jali-work railings and pavilions. A curving Orangery frames the Persian Garden of Paradise with its fountain and canals. The house is set within a romantic garden – a fine example of the Picturesque style – with its Temple to Surya, the Indian Sun God, its spring and stream linking seven lovely pools, the Indian Bridge, and its grottoes. Sezincote was built in 1810 by Charles Cockerell, who had worked out in India, assisted by his brother, the architect Samuel Pepys Cockerell, and Thomas Daniell, the great painter of Indian architectural scenery. The garden was designed by Thomas Daniell to resemble the romantic landscapes which surrounded the ruined temples and palaces in his pictures of India. Later, in the 1950s, the garden was developed by the famous plantsman Graham Stuart Thomas, who added the distinctive serpentine-edged borders beside pools and stream, planted with a patchwork of his favourite perennials: hostas, astilbes, rodgersia and peltiphyllum peltatum. More recent additions are the wildflower meadow with an avenue of Persian quinces and inscriptions of Sufi poetry on the Persian garden steps.