The story

During the 1920s the garden attracted much publicity and praise, receiving coverage in, for example, Country Life, Architectural Review, and The Studio, who held it up as a good example of the style of layout then in fashion for a small country house. Towards the end of the 1920s Crisp suffered financial difficulties, and the garden began to decline, some of Hill’s designs never having been implemented. Newbold College acquired the site in 1945, and it is now (1998) used by the College as a residential facility.

The millionaire Charles Birch Crisp, who owned the late C19 Moor Close, employed the young Oliver Hill (1887-1968) 1910-11 to create formal terraces around the house (overlaying a previous informal design), at the same time as he completed major alterations to the house. This was Hill’s first commission after setting up his own practice (although not typical of his later work), and he continued to work for Crisp on the gardens at Moor Close for several years afterwards, producing Sylvia’s Garden in 1913, the planting schemes being heavily influenced by the style of Gertrude Jekyll.