Obituary: Patricia Coke

The publication of Patricia Coke's father's diaries, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan OM 1938-1945 (1971), skilfully edited by David Dilks, had the full support of her mother and her family. She knew that they were controversial and revealed an unsuspected side of her diplomatic father who served as Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1938-46) but she considered their publication fully justified.

To read of Lord Gladwyn, "That bloody fool Jebb goes and sends me the wrong box. He's very clever but no Private Sec.", or of John Foster Dulles, "the woolliest type of useless pontificating American", an opinion treasured by Professor Sir Michael Howard, gives an indication of the diaries' out- spokenness - as does the down-to-earth entry recording the engagement of his eldest daughter on 6 July 1939: "Came down to breakfast and found Trish [Patricia] and C[ynthia]. Trish said, `I'm engaged to Gerry Coke.' I confess I was so surprised that I probably didn't come up to the situation." Patricia shared her father's directness. Her marriage took place on 2 September, the day before the outbreak of the Second World War.

Patricia and her two sisters accompanied their parents on their journey to China, where Alec Cadogan was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Peking from 1933 to 1935 and Ambassador in 1935-36. She was later to give a record of their time there in a splendid album of photographs of the city to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Her mother, Lady Theodosia Acheson, was one of three sisters, daughters of the fourth Earl of Gosford, painted in 1902 by J.S. Sargent for their grandmother, the Duchess of Devonshire.

A gift which might not have been suspected in her father was his love for his garden at the Thatched Cottage, near Northam, in Sussex. This was a love which Patricia inherited to the full. It was one which she shared with her husband and which has been passed to their son, John Coke, who runs one of the most stimulating nurseries in Britain, at Bentley in Hampshire, not far from the garden which his parents created at Jenkyn Place.

During the 1970s, every time one paid a visit, the garden at Jenkyn had been enlarged, a new part created. The vegetable garden had been moved, the tennis court converted. New walks, new plantings had been made. There was constant change and stimulus on the fertile upper greensand. There was the delightful enclosed, sheltered brick courtyard full of fragrant plants, and Patricia's own achievement, the long, elegant, double herbaceous border, glorious in July, always immaculate, one of the best in Britain. As Allen Paterson wrote, praising the cohesiveness of the design, "The garden was full of interest at every season of the year", "the acres all amazingly kept in a state of near perfection by a staff of three, plus, of course, the owners".

In Gerry Coke, Patricia had married a born collector. To his Regency furniture, bought during the war, his Renaissance bronzes from which even he, a banker with S.G. Warburg, turned, because of the increasing price, to the Worcester porcelain decorated by James Giles, of which he had probably the best collection in private hands and on which he wrote an admirable monograph, there was the unique collection of Handeliana, both manuscripts and memorabilia.

After Gerry's death in 1990, Patricia became a punctilious curator, as generous as he had been in granting access to the scholarly collections: "I am always here," she wrote, "battling with the porcelain and Mr Handel." She had great qualities. Despite ill-health she continued to work in the garden. She had her father's courage and willingness to speak her mind. For that reason she could be found daunting. She loyally preserved their joint achievement at Jenkyn Place. Their hospitality was always to be enjoyed, never pretentious or excessive, invariably suitable and in the best English country-house tradition, with good wine, although her husband stuck to ginger beer, roast chicken, an unusual range of different sugars, perfect boiled eggs for breakfast.

Their generosity and individuality was captured in the bedrooms, where well-lettered and mounted notices asked that no gratuities be left for the staff, as in the announcements of their own deaths: "Private cremation, immediate family only. No letters please." Those who are thus debarred from writing and enjoyed their visits to Jenkyn Place must pay Gerry and Patricia Coke abundant tribute for the happy memories of their hospitality, and the collections, their humour and courage, and, perhaps outstandingly, as gardeners.

Ian Lowe

Patricia Cadogan, gardener: born 30 January 1916; married 1939 Gerald Coke (died 1991; three sons, one daughter); died 8 August 1995.