The Loveliest Valley: A Garden in Sussex

Woolbeding House lies in the valley of the River Rother in West Sussex, an unchanging English landscape. Time had appeared to stand still when, in 1972, Simon Sainsbury and Stewart Grimshaw leased the house and gardens from the National Trust. For over four decades, they worked with a talented team of architects, designers and contractors to create a masterpiece of 20th-century garden design, a Sussex Arcadia. In The Loveliest Valley Stewart Grimshaw recalls catching intriguing glimpses of the house on visits to Sussex, the serendipitous nature of their purchase and the painstaking process of breathing new life into both house and garden. Photographer Tessa Traeger has captured images of Woolbeding in every type of English weather, extreme and benign, from dawn to dusk. The Loveliest Valley is a testament to how a beautiful garden can be created in the modern age, linking the great English gardening tradition with contemporary experimentation.