Formal gardens designed by Harold Peto and completed in 1912.
LOCATION, SETTING, LANDFORM, BOUNDARIES AND AREA
The gardens are located on the north side of the village of Woodhall Spa and are surrounded by woods with pine woods to the south and a larch plantation to the east. They occupy an area of approximately 12 hectares. The gardens are bounded on the south by Coronation Road, on the west by Stixwould Road and on the north-west by Monument Road, excluding the area of the planned housing development (2017). Approximately 0.27km along Monument Road, the boundary then follows a track southwards to the north-east side of Petwood Hotel. From here it runs eastwards through the woodland for approximately 0.11km and then southwards through the woodland to join up with Coronation Road.
ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES
Petwood is approached via a drive, constructed in the mid-1980s, off Stixwould Road at the north-west corner of the formal gardens, which leads to a large tarmac car park at the rear of the house. At the entrance to the original drive, which is just to the north of the current drive, is a lodge in the same half-timbered Tudor style as the main house. This has ornate iron gates and red brick walls with stone piers.
PRINCIPAL BUILDING
Petwood (Grade II-listed) was built in 1905 and extended in 1910. It is in a fanciful timber-framed Tudor style with plain tiled roofs, multiple clustered red brick chimney stacks, and timber mullions with leaded lights. The house has a rambling L-shape plan and an irregular facade of two and three storeys with a two-storey oriel over the main entrance. The south side overlooks the formal gardens. It has been extended piecemeal to provide hotel accommodation.
ORNAMENTAL GROUNDS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS
The gardens form an oblong with a main north-south axis from the centre of the house aligned with the site of the Atalanta Temple at the far extremity of the grounds, crossed by a terrace running east-west and a parallel raised cross walk halfway down the garden.
Along the south front of the house is a broad stone-flagged terrace with a pierced stone balustrade surmounted by urns at the corners. A central opening leads down to a stone-flagged, circular area which has low triangular hedges at each corner and a central circular hedge, the remnants of Goldring’s topiary that was altered by Peto. From here, the main axial path leads southwards, flanked by rose festoons, to a circular stone-edged pool with a small fountain statue of a baby Neptune, acquired by Grace from the late C19 Ducel foundry in France. This forms the junction with the east-west axis which originally had pierced balustrading and a paved terrace, now lost, leaving only a raised bank.
The round pool looks southwards over an expansive lawn towards a large round pond, in the centre of which is a statue of four graceful Nereids (copied from a fountain at Versailles), that was also acquired by Grace from the Ducel foundry. Beyond this, on a raised platform stood the Temple of Atalanta which was a structure of six stone pillars, surmounted by a dome of open iron-work, and flanked by a pillared pergola. This lost feature is currently being reinstated (2017).
To the west of the house there is an apsidal lawn, on the south side of which a long swimming pool was created in the 1930s, surrounded by an ornate ironwork screen with stone steps at either end. The sunken topiary garden, known as the Dutch Garden, on the west side of the apsidal lawn, is surrounded by a stone path from which flights of steps lead down to the flagged-stone centre, containing an oblong pool. The garden is surrounded by topiary. To the west of this, on the other side of the entrance drive, a rustic summerhouse is situated, clad in diagonal timbers, which is aligned with the sunken garden and south terrace. A tennis lawn, surrounded by yew hedges, is located on the south side of the sunken garden.
From the sunken garden, a yew walk leads southwards and opens into a circle which formerly enclosed a rose garden which is now lawned over. The circle has an opening on the east side which is aligned with the Temple garden on the eastern boundary of the gardens. This was designed by Grace herself. The west-facing temple (called as such but is actually a loggia) is reached via three stone steps and has stone pillars supporting a roof with a moulded stone architrave. It is flanked by high red brick walls, punctuated by small stone niches for statues, which continue at right angles before terminating in brick piers. From here, brick pergolas continue eastwards, terminating in a wheel of lintels which are not an original part of the design. On the south return wall a gateway with projecting brick surround and semi-circular arch, leads into a rhododendron walk in the woodland to the east, terminating in a beech tree avenue.
KITCHEN GARDEN
On the north side of the house, the former kitchen garden occupies a long narrow plot, bounded on the north-west side by a high brick wall, against which glasshouses were built. These have since been dismantled, leaving the whitewashed brick as evidence of their former position. The former gardener’s cottage is a single-storey, rendered building with a shallow pitched, tile-clad roof.