Some of the most notable things in history have been down to fate and the creation of the Levens Hall topiary garden owes much to the bad fortune of former owner, Alan Bellingham.  Already well-known for his profligacy and ability to amass debts, Bellingham lost Levens Hall on the turn of a card – the Ace of Hearts.

When his properties went up for sale to pay his debts, his cousin, Colonel James Grahme, stepped in and bought Levens Hall.  That action, in 1688, forms the cornerstone of the Levens Hall’s gardens’ history, as it was Grahme who then asked Monsieur Guillaume Beaumont, a court gardener, to landscape and design his new property’s gardens.

The role the card game played in Grahme’s purchase is not lost on visitors to Levens Hall and Gardens.  If they examine the downpipes, they will spot several Ace of Hearts emblems.

Despite Grahme having spent most of the money acquired in the service of King Charles II and his brother James II on the purchase of the estate, he still spent money on Beaumont’s re-design of the gardens.  This was actually his greatest legacy at Levens Hall, where little other work was undertaken.  

Grahme was continually living under a cloud of suspicion after James II fled to France and the Jacobite reign ended.  Allegations of treason were frequent and imprisonment occurred on a couple of occasions.  It may not have been prudent to tackle more work, especially if money was tight.

Levens Hall’s topiary garden probably owes much to Grahme’s familiarity with great court gardens, both in England and in France.  He probably also knew Monsieur Beaumont from Beaumont’s work at Hampton Court.  Monsieur Beaumont, although a figure about whom we know very little, allegedly trained at Versailles under Andre le Nôtre.  That no doubt influenced his plans for Levens Hall and may well have led to the establishment of a topiary garden.

The Levens Hall gardens were a formal example of Jacobean garden design and the topiary garden was designed in the Dutch style, so popular in its day.  Despite many other gardens having been created to the Dutch blueprint, many ceased to exist in the 18th century, when new trends emerged and these formal gardens were ripped out.  These tended to make way for more relaxed and natural-looking gardens, designed by names such as Capability Brown.  With the pressures exerted by the Lake Poets,  many gardens were returned back to nature, so as to work in harmony with the Lake District landscape.

However, fate again played a hand in Levens Hall’s gardens’ story.  When Grahme died, the estate descended down the female line for many generations.  The owners of Levens Hall were rather enamoured by the topiary garden but also tended to be married to husbands with other ‘first-home’ properties and with little desire to spend money on a redesign of the Levens Hall garden, at what was often a second home.  Consequently, whilst many of its peers were wiped off the gardens map, the Levens Hall topiary garden was saved.

The lack of male heirs, for over two centuries, remarkably followed a curse imposed by an old woman, turned away after seeking food and shelter at the Hall.  Bitterly, she declared no male heirs would be born at the Hall until the River Kent (just a stone’s throw away) ceased to flow and a white deer appeared in Levens Park (where a herd of black deer exist to this day).  The prophesy proved correct and the curse was not broken until 1896, when the arrival of Alan Desmond Bagot was at a time when the river had completely frozen over and, bizarrely, a white fawn was born into the black herd.




World Topiary Day has nothing to do with fate, being a positive initiative that celebrates the art of topiary and the enjoyment topiary gardens around the world bestow.  Levens Hall and Gardens founded World Topiary Day in 2020, to mark its Guinness World Record-holding status as the world’s oldest topiary garden and spread the joy of topiary.  The celebration has certainly been an ace in the pack and won many hearts.

Looking back at the 329 years of the topiary garden, it cannot be disputed that fate has played a major part in its remarkable history and fortunes – something of which the Ace of Hearts’ presence on the ancient downpipes provides a constant and sobering reminder.