Henry Avray Tipping

Henry Avray Tipping (22 August 1855 – 16 November 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, a garden designer, and Architectural Editor of Country Life magazine for 17 years.

Early life Tipping was born in the Château de Ville-d'Avray near Versailles, while his parents were living in France before moving into Brasted Place in Brasted, Kent, where he grew up. He belonged to a Quaker Christian family of businessmen, who had prospered in the corn trade in Liverpool. His father, William Tipping (1816–1897), was a railway company owner and amateur archaeologist and artist, who served as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Stockport between 1868–74 and 1885–86. His mother Maria (née Walker, 1822–1911) was the daughter of a flax mill owner from Leeds.

Henry Avray Tipping was educated in France and Middlesex before reading modern history at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was a member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society. He also wrote musical comedies, performed locally in Kent, and became an expert on wood carving, particularly the work of Grinling Gibbons.

In 1907 he was appointed as the magazine's Architectural Editor, and became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1910 Sir Lawrence Weaver became Architectural Editor, allowing Tipping time to write his books. However, in 1916 during the First World War, Weaver was appointed as a civil servant, with Tipping taking back the role of Architectural Editor, which he held until his retirement in 1930. Thereafter he continued as an architectural writer for the magazine until his death.

He also worked as a garden designer in the Arts and Crafts style; he was a friend of Gertrude Jekyll, Harold Peto and Edwin Lutyens. His gardens were characterised by divided compartments with sculpted yew hedging, topiary birds and animals, long grass bowling greens, lush planting and wild areas. Tipping rebuilt the property; moved to live there with his mother; designed and, then laid out its surrounding gardens. He also planned the gardens at Wyndcliffe Court, St Arvans, near Chepstow, a new house designed by Francis for the Clay family who owned the Piercefield estate. He died of cancer on 16 November 1933, at Harefield House, at the age of 78. The Garden of Today (1933)