Introduction

Visitors coming for the first time can drive off the road from London at Buckfastleigh and miss altogether the first indication that they have arrived at Dartington. The eight richly-coloured heraldic shields on the carved angels under the hammer beams of the Hall bear the arms of the successive owners of Dartington Hall. Dorothy’s correspondence, notebooks and diaries for the period of her life up to 1925 are divided between Cornell University, where her first husband studied architecture, and Dartington. The eight richly-coloured heraldic shields on the carved angels under the hammer beams of the Hall bear the arms of the successive owners of Dartington Hall. The verticals are the abundant trees. A garden of trees as much as of plants — on the top terrace gnarled Spanish chestnuts, their trunks strengthened with pitch; four tall London planes stepping down the other terraces; a statuesque Monterey pine; an evergreen oak with skirts as enclosing as a hovercraft’s.