The model of a modern horticulturalist

FORMER fashion models inevitably have an eye for beauty but not all of them manage to build an exquisitely beautiful life for themselves.

When Niamh Kendall was signed up by the world-famous Storm and Ford model agencies as a gorgeous young Irish girl, one wonders if she ever imagined she’d end up living in a listed Queen Anne country manor once owned by the Duke of Marlborough and where Winston Churchill once visited.

Did her seven brothers and sisters back home in Dublin always know her life would be a charmed one? That she’d meet her banker husband while modelling in Tokyo, go on to have four children and now be planning her daughter’s wedding at the pretty little church in Kidmore End next month?

As dreams go, this one has definitely come true for Niamh, now 50.

Still blessed with stunning model looks, Niamh is now a horticulturalist finding beauty in the plants and flowers grown in the 14 acres at Kidmore House, where the family moved 20 years ago.

The large sweet chestnut tree which stands in the lawn, for instance, is said to have been planted when the red-brick mansion was built in 1680 and the formal gardens are arranged in “rooms” divided by walls and yew hedges enclosing displays of delphiniums, calla lilies, white wisteria and roses.

Niamh says: “We loved the gardens from the outset as a safe place for the children to play and grow as well as a lovely space to entertain or sit quietly.

“As the children grew, I found that I increasingly spent my free time in the garden.”

“Ten years ago I noticed a poster on the village noticeboard for a Royal Horticultural Society practical course run in North Moreton which I signed up to and was instantly hooked on.

“I have also completed a garden design course with my very knowledgable RHS teacher and I’m currently enjoying developing the gardens and redesigning the borders where necessary.”

The seeds for Niamh’s new career were sewn early as she is the daughter of a market gardener and she and her siblings grew up prepping vegetables for sale at Dublin’s wholesale market.

“It’s actually in my DNA,” she says. “I grew up bagging lettuce for the market, debudding chrysanthemums and bunching dahlias after school and in the summer holidays.”

Niamh’s friends and neighbours in Kidmore End are well aware of her passion as last year she took over the gardening column in the parish magazine.

They were also able to see her spectacular garden for themselves when she opened up under the National Gardening Scheme in June, welcoming almost 150 visitors on the opening day. “I think we made more than 200 cups of tea,” she says. Proceeds from the event went partly to the charity Thrive, for which Niamh began volunteering 10 years ago, and which promotes the therapeutic benefits of gardening to the

disabled and especially stroke victims.

One unexpected visitor to her gardens that day turned out to be especially knowledgable — it was Christine Walkden, who appears on the BBC’s The One Show and Gardeners’ World and who hosts her own series from her garden in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire.

“I had no idea she was coming,” says Niamh. “I actually met her by some dead climbing hydrangeas and the first thing she asked me was how they died.”

How Niamh must have wished they had met by the lake the installed when the couple moved in or even at the vineyard they planted when her husband Stephen retired four years ago.

But then Niamh is way too nice to say so.

“I just told her it was probably some honey fungus,” she says. “I love working in the garden and spend about five hours a day in the garden and the vineyard, especially in the summer months. “But showing it to people makes it even more special.”

The new vineyard now occupies much of the couple’s time — Stephen describes himself as the dogsbody of the enterprise — and came about because the grounds at their home included a free-draining sloping field which lent itself to vines.

There are now 4,300 Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines in place.

“Kidmore Sparkling Organic Wine is the plan,” says Niamh, “but it won’t be available until 2026 as although we will have our first harvest this year, it is then four years in the making

using the traditional method.”

So while the rest of us are planning our two-week summer holiday, the Kendalls will be limiting themselves to a snatched three days in Spain with friends, despite having a team who

work on the gardens year round.

“To be honest, we love being in Kidmore End for the summer,” says Niamh.

“This September our daughter Cathryn is getting married in the village church with the reception in the garden so I am busy getting it all looking good for the day and hope to provide some homegrown flowers for the event.”

It goes without saying that everything will be beautiful.