Eleanour Sinclair Rohde was a prominent gardener and author, credited with reviving the popularity of traditional herbalism and vegetables. At her home in Croydon Road, Reigate she grew uncommon herbs and vegetable varieties, ran a seed business and wrote thirty books on gardening, including her best-known work, The Scented Garden.
Eleanour was born in 1881 in Travancore, India, a princely southern state in what is now Kerala, where her father John was a civil servant. She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College and read History at St Hilda’s Hall, Oxford from 1901.
Her parents returned to England when her father John Rohde retired. They settled at Cranham Lodge, 44 Croydon Road, Reigate. Eleanour’s younger brother John H Rohde was tragically killed in the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914.
Eleanour had been interested in gardening from her childhood and John Rohde bought a large area of extra land at the back of the lodge for Eleanour to expand her garden. Following the death of her parents she continued to live there for the rest of her life.
In 1913 she began her prolific horticultural writing career, producing 30 books and contributing to magazines including The Field, The Queen, Country Life and the RHS Journal. Several were illustrated by artist, Estella Canziani.
‘She combines very happily the literature of these goodly herbs of our forefathers with practical recipes which bring up again the still-room of the Jacobean House.’ Daily Express
During the war, she studied at the Whins Herb Farm and Training College started by Maud Grieve which provided practical courses on commercial herb growing, harvesting, drying and marketing. In 1922 she combined her knowledge of herbs and historical training in her book, ‘A Garden of Herbs.’
In June 1921 Eleanour and Maud Grieve won a flora medal for their well-stocked herb garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. The Queen reported, ‘In this place of homely and fragrant suggestion people lingered, discovering with pleasure plants whose names, to them merely literary encounters, were household words a few generations ago.’
Many years later, after the Second World War, she designed another herb garden at Lullingstone castle for Zoe, Lady Hart Dyke in 1946. It occupied the space that Lady Hart Dyke's grandson, Tom Hart Dyke converted in the early 2000s into the ‘World Garden of Plants.’
Her most popular work was The Scented Garden (1931) which described the best-known scented flowers and trees for every season, starting with the ‘fresh honey scent’ of wintersweet and praising the aromatic herbs.
The book, which is dedicated to her friends the Messels who owned Nymans gardens, has lyrical descriptions of old roses, inspired by the rose garden there.
There were numerous reprints over subsequent years to satisfy consumer demand. It has been seen as the seminal work on scented plants and is still cited by gardeners today.
In the Second World War Eleanour threw herself into the war effort. In addition to her own large garden, the Surrey Mirror reported that she had a large area under cultivation in Alders Road and on Reigate Hill, with nearly a dozen assistants working under her direction.
She wrote The Wartime Vegetable Garden (1940) which described vegetable growing for novices in simple language. Her book included simple recipes, rarely needing more than four easily available ingredients, so that people could see how they could use the fruits of their labours. She wanted people to appreciate that careless handling affected flavour and impaired their vitamin value, and some vegetables might benefit from being served raw.
As well as the commonly grown vegetables she encouraged people to try more obscure ones like seakale, salsify, black Spanish radish, asparagus peas and Brittle Ice Lettuce in her follow up book, ‘Uncommon Vegetables. (1943).’ She showed how you could slow roast vegetables like the small marrow, Table Dainty to bring out their flavour.
Eleanour supplied seed packets of these specialist vegetables from her Garden at Cranham Lodge and the seed order business continued after her death.
Eleanour has been described in some commentaries as shy and solitary, a woman of gracious, old-fashioned charm who lived a quiet and unassuming life. This does seem a little wide of the mark, given her willingness to engage in public speaking.
Shortly before the war she went on a six month’s lecture tour to the United States. In wartime, she gave public talks to spread the word on vegetable growing. In one such, during Reigate’s, ‘Dig for Victory Week’ in May 1942 she joined Captain Beaumont, Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries at the Market Hall, Redhill. Her practical advice included growing sugar beet ‘in view of its high sugar content, which made it invaluable to children in these days when sugar was rationed.’
She continued to broadcast regularly including on the BBC Schools’ Programme, with her last broadcast being recorded in the sick room of her nursing home where she died in 1950.
The Herb Society https://herbsociety.org.uk/important-women-of-20th-century-herbalism-maud-grieve/
The Garden Museum
https://www.gardenmuseum.org.uk/gardeners-you-should-know-eleanour-sinclair-rohde/
The Rosarian Library
https://therosarianlibrary.co.uk/stories/eleanour-sinclair-rohde-a-spiritual-friend/
Life on Pig Row, A garden and kitchen full of joy, https://lifeonpigrow.blogspot.com/2023/03/eleanour-sinclair-rohde.html
Daily Express, Published Wednesday, 20 October 1920
The Queen, 4 June 1921
Surrey Mirror, Friday, 8 May 1942 and Friday, 30 June 1950
Worthing Gazette, Wednesday, 5 November 1941
Memorial Plaque to John H Rohde, St Mary’s Church, Reigate
Picture of Cranham Lodge, Croydon Road (2009) Ian Capper