Gardeners, Warriors and Churchyards


Mickleton - A Miscellany: by Chris Knight


Chapter 19. Gardeners, Warriors and Churchyards.


The churchyard at St Lawrence's contains the graves of two men of note from the twentieth century with very contrasting histories; Lawrence Johnston and Victor-Joseph De Martelaere. One was the creator of a garden of international renown at Hidcote. The other was a Belgium soldier in the first world war fighting for his country, was wounded, and died and interred in a foreign land.


Lawrence Johnston (or to give him his full title Major Lawrence Waterbury Johnston) is today best well known as the owner and creator of one of the most influential and most visited gardens in England, Hidcote Manor Garden. He and his mother, Mrs Winthrop, are buried side by side in the churchyard of St Lawrence. He died aged 86 in 1958. Although Hidcote Manor is in the hamlet of Hidcote Bartrim it was at the time in the ecclesiastical parish of Mickleton (though not in the civil parish), so Lawrence Johnston was a parishioner of the Parish of Mickleton. He was born in Paris, France into a family from Baltimore in America and became a naturalised British citizen in 1900 just after he graduated from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College). He joined the British Army and served in South Africa during the Second Boer War and in the First World War, and attained the rank of Major.


Lawrence Johnston was one of the last people to be interned in the churchyard. It no longer had space for further burials and an order to close it had to be obtained. A closing order for churchyards is an Order made by Her Majesty in Council under Section 1 of the Burial Act 1853 requiring the discontinuance of burials. This was duly applied for and an order of closure was granted. The closure document was signed by the Duke of Edinburgh for the Queen and John Profumo for the Council and government. Profumo was the MP for Stratford upon Avon, a government minister and the main protagonist in what became known as the Profumo Affair - a scandal involving a young ‘model’, navel attaché at the Soviet Embassy, and lying to Parliament - which led to his resignation from the government in 1963. An additional burial ground was subsequently established adjacent to the church, which in turn is running our of space for further burials. As a result, a third graveyard has been established alongside. Both of these are next to the church but separated from it by a public footpath.


VJ De Martelaere, or as he is better known ‘A Belgian Soldier’, was wounded in action in October 1914 at Antwerp at the outset of the war defending his country from the invading Germans. He was evacuated to England, first to hospital in Birmingham and then to Norton Hall in November. Norton Hall, which is just outside the village, had been set up as a hospital for wounded soldiers. He died in December the same year and was buried with full military honours. His wife, who was illiterate, tried to have his body repatriated to Belgium in 1922. Sadly, she missed the deadline on which the Belgium authorities was prepared to finance the return of bodies of Belgium soldiers. Unable to pay the cost herself his remains stayed in Mickleton.


There is also a commemorative plaque, which can be seen from the footpath which goes through Bakers Hill Wood, that commemorates VJ Martelaere. This is next to an old carving of an outline of a Belgium soldier in the bark of a large beech tree. The inscription on the plaque reads "During the First World War, Norton Hall, near Mickleton was opened as a hospital for wounded soldiers. Among the patients were some Belgian men. One of them, Victor Joseph De Martelaere, died and was buried at the Church of St Lawrence in Mickleton where his grave can still be seen". It is assumed that the carving was made by another Belgian man who was in the hospital at Norton Hall. The inscription on the carving is mostly indistinguishable but appears to be a name and the year 1917.