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About Wheatley House
Wheatley House was originally a C16 farmhouse, surrounded by hop fields and orchards. It is now a Grade II listed building with elegant gothic style windows, an unusual feature of the late C18 extension. Situated on a rural hilltop with extensive views over Alice Holt Forest and the South Downs, the terraced, south-facing lawns proved a challenging canvas for artist Susannah Adlington who moved here with her family in 1981 to start ‘painting’ a garden. Over the years Susannah, who admits to being much more of an artist than a plantswoman, has had great fun creating a garden full of interesting and unusual planting combinations. She is helped by her enthusiastic part-time gardeners, Ivan, Jane and Alf – each with their own skills.
The sweeping, mixed borders are particularly attractive with spectacular colour throughout the season. The black, white and red border is very popular with visitors and at its best in late summer/early autumn. ‘ We are very lucky on several counts’, says Susannah, ‘as we are surrounded by old brick and stone walls (keeping out the destructive elements of wildlife!) and we have excellent neutral upper greensand soil and a large Victorian lean-to greenhouse, enabling us to over-winter tender perennials and take cuttings.
Although most of our planting is rather more ‘planned’ than is fashionable these days, we do now have a totally ‘wild area’. When our tennis court became redundant we literally rotavated the old ‘gritty grey/green’ surface area and let nature create what is now a colourful wildflower area at its best in June/July. Nothing has ever been sown there except by the birds! All we do is remove the self sown saplings or it would have turned into a woodland by now!
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