A whole chapter in William Robinson The Wild Gardener is devoted to the creation of the gardens around Gravetye Manor, near Sharpthorne, which the 'boy' later added to with the adjacent Mill Place estate.

Gravetye, now a country house hotel and renowned Michelin Star restaurant, was bought by William Robinson in 1885 when he was an established gardening contemporary and friend of Gertrude Jekyll.

The 14-bedroomed Elizabeathan manor house and 360 acre estate were then rundown but Robinson set about transforming both.

His work at Gravetye is documented in William Robinson The Wild Gardener by Richard Bisgrove, course director for landscape management at the University of Reading and author of the best selling Gardens of Gertrude Jekyll.

Richard's beautifully illustrated 256-page book also throws light on a man who was a driving force in the national past-time of gardening.

More than any other, he was responsible for sweeping away Victorian carpet bedding and promoting more relaxed planting of hardy specimens although, unlike Jekyll, his name is not automatically associated with garden design.

Robinson, who was born in 1838, is best known for his 1870 book The Wild Garden and his all-encompassing English Flower Garden which has been described as 'the most widely read and influentical gardening book ever written'.

But it is at Gravetye that his reputation took greatest practical hold with the 'formal' development, in his own informal way, of many areas of the land he own.

Gravetye is now a prestigious hotel with three rosettes from the AA which in 2008 won the Garden of the Year from the Relais and Chateaux travel group.
Picture from
William Robinson The Wild Gardener, published by Frances Lincoln Ltd (www.franceslincoln.com) priced at £30 hardback.