Henry Albert ('Harry') Mangles
| Henry Albert ('Harry') Mangles FGS | |||||||||
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| File:Mangles, Henry Albert ('Harry').jpg | |||||||||
| Born | 1833 | ||||||||
| Died | 1908 | ||||||||
| Residence | Littleworth Cross, Tongham, Surrey | ||||||||
| Occupation |
naturalist gardener | ||||||||
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Contents
Notes
Office Notes
House Notes
Notes From Elsewhere
Henry Albert (Harry) Mangles (1833 – 1908) was born at Flexford near Puttenham. He was a friend of Gertrude Jekyll, who drove over in her pony and trap to meet him at Littleworth, in Seale, a house built in 1872 by Norman Shaw. The friendship of Jekyll and Lutyens began at Littleworth, and Edwin Lutyens describes his meeting with Gertrude Jekyll when he was just 19, “It was in 1889 that Mr Harry Mangles asked me to meet his remarkable friend Miss Jekyll. I eagerly accepted this privilege. We met at a tea table, the silver kettle and the conversation reflecting rhododendrons.” Lutyens designed the gazebo and donkey shelter at Littleworth, and Harry commissioned Lutyens to design a gardener’s cottage, Squirrel Hill (RIBA have a watercolour sketch for Squirrel Hill dated May 1889, published in RIBA drawings monographs no 1, Sketches by Sir Edwin Lutyens, by Margaret Richardson).
Harry was unmarried and lived with his two sisters Rose (1835 – 1901) and Clara (1846 – 1931). He was a philanthropist and had great interest in gardening, trees and rhododendrons. His knowledge of rhododendrons came from his brother, James Henry Mangles of Valewood, near Lurgashall, Sussex. Harry became a nurseryman, specialising in hybrid rhododendrons, and in 1882 he exhibited “Alice Mangles” named after his sister. Many of his rhododendrons survive at Littleworth. Harry and his sisters are buried in Seale churchyard.”
A new country house was built at Littleworth Cross, an open heathland site, for Harry Mangles in 1873. His brother James, who lived at nearby Valewood, Haslemere, was one of the earliest rhododendron collectors and hybridisers. When James died in 1884, most of his plant collection was brought to Littleworth Cross and Harry continued hybridising and exhibiting rhododendrons, with the help of his sister Clara. Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932), who lived nearby at Munstead, knew the Mangles family and was visiting one afternoon in May 1889 when she was introduced to a young architect, Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) who was designing a gardener's cottage and some garden buildings for Harry Mangles. The meeting was important for both Lutyens and Jekyll: she discovered someone with a similar love of the vernacular architecture of south-west Surrey, who would design her new home, Munstead Wood (qv), and through her, he was introduced to many potential clients. Lutyens and Jekyll began a collaboration of building and garden design that would last until her death in 1932.
Harry Mangles died in 1908 and his sister lived on at Littleworth Cross until 1931.
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