Forde Abbey, four miles south east of Chard, offers a fascinating history, a stately home full of rare treasures and, above all, one of the oldest and finest gardens in the south west of England. The abbey is particularly famed for its massive walled kitchen garden, full of colourful flowers, interesting vegetables and tender fruits…
East Lambrook was the home of Margery Fish, the mother of English cottage gardening. Margery Fish’s articles and books are so popular that they are rarely out of print. Her ideas shaped gardening to the economic realities of post-war Britain, opening the joys of plants and simple design from a preserve of the rich to…
Kiftsgate Court sits on top of Glyde Hill in the Wiltshire Cotswolds. The house was finished at the end of the nineteenth century and the garden is the twentieth century product of three generations of women and their families: Helen Muir, her daughter Diana Binny and her daughter, the current owner, Anne Chambers. The garden…
Bishop’s Palace was built in 1206 by Bishop Jocelin Trotman, first Bishop of Bath and Wells. Bishops still live in the Palace’s old servant quarters and have opened most of the palace and grounds are open to visitors. For 800 years the Bishops have used these gardens to relax and contemplate, often to indulging their…
The garden’s of Mapperton house in Dorset are one of the regions most unique and romantic gardens. Mapperton began as a formal Edwardian Italianate garden where nature has been allowed to encroach and soften its sharp edges. Like a creation from a fairy tale it unfolds down the valley, seamlessly becoming one with the rolling…
Situated on the south coast of Cornwall Minack is the most dramatic setting of any of the gardens covered in this regional study. Minack is Cornish for ‘rocky place’ and until 100 years ago it was just another headland cliff. The arrival of Rowena Cade transformed this cliff into a remarkable working theatre, a stage…
Greenway in Devon is a beautiful woodland garden set on the banks of the River Dart. It is most famous for being the summer home of Torquay born Mrs. Mallowan, better known as the author Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime. She certainly is one of the most popular novelists in history. The gardens are…
Wellington Park, with its pleasing contrasts of formal bedding set against the informal rockeries and winding pathways, is well worth a visit. Wellington Park, a short walk from the town centre, dates from 1902 and still is a compact site of 4.5 acres. The borders are planted with shrubs but each year the ornamental beds…
St Ives is one of Cornwall’s most famous tourist venues with its fishing port, beaches and a warm climate. It has a long association with well-known British artists from Turner through to Ben Nicholson, Patrick Heron and Terry Frost. It was in 1939 that Nicholson returned to St Ives with Barbara Hepworth and they established…
Tucked away at the bottom of a tranquil valley, a visit to the romantic, award-winning, Grade 1 listed Peto Garden is like no other. Famed Edwardian landscape designer Harold Peto designed the unique, Italiante, Grade 1 listed gardens when Iford Manor was his home, from 1899-1933. Drawing inspiration from his travels all around the world,…