The Topiary of Levens Hall — Reading Three Centuries of Clipped Yew

The topiary at Levens Hall looks, at first glance, like something that simply exists — vast, settled shapes that have always been there. In fact every one of them is the product of an annual working cycle that has barely changed in over three hundred years.

A year-long task

Clipping begins on the first of September and continues through Christmas and often beyond — a genuinely mammoth undertaking across ten acres of shaped yew and box. The best time to actually see the crispest, most defined shapes is spring, before that season's new growth has had a chance to soften the outlines again. It's a useful thing to know if precise, sculptural topiary is what you've come to see, rather than the softer, greener look of high summer.

The Beech Circle

At the heart of the garden sits the Beech Circle — an ancient hedge that has spread outwards and upwards over the centuries until it now stands more than five metres tall and five metres deep. It forms a hub from which four quartered pathways radiate out to different parts of the garden, effectively acting as the garden's compass point. Around it, herbaceous borders are arranged in distinct colour palettes, alongside a rose garden and a fountain garden that give the topiary some contrasting company.

The oldest ha-ha in the country

Levens also lays claim to the oldest recorded ha-ha in England — a sunken boundary ditch that keeps livestock out of the garden without the visual interruption of a wall or fence. Family papers from 1695 mention it, and it's thought to have been created around 1693, which would make it a genuinely early example of a device that later became a fixture of English landscape design throughout the eighteenth century. It's easy to walk straight past it; look for the point where the garden's edge simply seems to fall away towards the parkland and the River Kent beyond.

Eleven head gardeners, one plan

Since the garden was first laid out, eleven head gardeners have tended it in succession, each one adding their own small adjustments while leaving the fundamental 1694 design intact. That continuity of care, as much as the original design itself, is what has kept Levens' topiary recognisably the same garden for over three centuries.

Levens Hall’s topiary garden can be included in a bespoke gardens and heritage day.