The Sea Captain and the Garden Designer
Joseph William Greenhill was born in 1880 in Ontario, Canada to George and Rachel Greenhill who had both been born in England but had emigrated in the 1870s.
Joseph came to England in 1898 to study to become a mariner in the Mercantile Marine. He obtained a 2nd Mate’s certificate in 1901 and a 1st Mate’s certificate in 1902. He enlisted in the Royal Naval Reserve and was commissioned in 1905. He married Blanche Paine in Alverstoke, Hampshire in 1910 and their son, also Joseph, was born in 1913.
Interspersed with his career as a merchant seaman, Joseph Greenhill spent many spells of duty as a RNR officer. The outbreak of war saw him serving as a lieutenant aboard HMS Amphitrite, a cruiser serving in the Atlantic. In 1918 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and the following year the Reserve Decoration recognising 15 years with the Royal Naval Reserve.
Joseph Greenhill was demobilised in 1919. It appears that this marked the end of his naval career because his service record notes in both 1921 and 1922 that he was unemployed and that he had not seen sea service since demobilisation. Whether this was through choice or not is unclear.
Commander Greenhill retired from the Reserve in 1922 and in 1925 was granted the honorary rank of Captain. At the time of his retirement, Joseph Greenhill was living at Fishers in Newpound Lane.
Fishers, when it was offered for sale by auction in 1909, was described as a ‘pleasure farm.’ The house named Fishers did not then exist. In a letter to Gertrude Jekyll sent in 1922, Greenhill says that the house was built in ‘about 1912.’ He goes on to say
‘I wish you could see the place…It is quite bare in winter, the few trees about all shedding their leaves and assisting in the desolate appearance.’
The first occupant of Fishers, and possibly the person responsible for building it, was Elsie de Courcy Parrish, the daughter of a wealthy American civil engineer. She is first recorded as living at Fishers in the Electoral Register of 1914. In 1919 she moved away and the Greenhills took up residence.
Joseph Greenhill commissioned Gertrude Jekyll to design a garden to improve the otherwise ‘desolate appearance’ he referred to. As by now, at the age of 79, she had stopped travelling to her clients’ properties, Greenhill himself drew site plans for her to work from. These plans, together with Miss Jekyll’s designs and two of Joseph Greenhill’s letters have survived.
Greenhill wrote that the house had been built “in old fashioned style. Unfortunately, there were no natural surroundings & it was built in the middle of a field.” In a second letter he writes “The whole place is very bare, especially in winter. The only really beautiful tree being the walnut on the lawn which is I should say quite 80 years old.” He is his own gardener, he says, and would like “the grounds laid out so that they require the minimum of attention.” He wanted the farm buildings and Fishers Cottage screened. He was enthusiastic about the views. “Being on sloping ground there is a good distant view as far as The Downs in one direction & Petworth Hill to the S.W.”
Gertrude Jekyll quickly responded with a plan and as well as planting lists for the flower borders she itemised trees for the screening. Although much has survived of her design, it appears that some planting details are missing and it is not known whether or not the design was completed. The plans may have seemed overwhelming to a man who was his own gardener; many of Miss Jekyll’s clients had several gardeners to carry out her designs
In October 1932 the household effects and farm implements and machinery of Captain Greenhill who was “quitting the district” were auctioned. Amongst the items auctioned were an ‘Osram Music Magnet wireless set’ and a “1927 12-horse power Clyno Royal Saloon Car (in good order).” Blanche had been active in amateur dramatics and choral concerts in the district and perhaps her loss was felt keenly.
In 1939 Captain Greenhill, now living in Reading, offered his services to the war effort but there was no post for him. By 1949 the Greenhills were living in Bishops Waltham in Hampshire where, on 12th December at the age of 69, Joseph died. Only a fortnight later, on Christmas Day, Blanche, too, passed away.
This article has been condensed from an account which appeared in the October 2023 edition of the Wisborough Green Village History Society’s monthly newsletter which is free to all members.
Andrew Strudwick