Synopsis
It is centred around the attractive hilltop house designed and built in 1901 by John Stanwell Birkett and William Henry Ward, members of the Arts and Crafts movement. Peter Hughes QC and head of the Gardens Trust is the current owner along with his wife Christine. He has historical photos and drawings of the house and says that he hasn’t done much to change the original design of the garden since he bought it in 2008. At that time, the property had been owned by the same family for 61 years and they had let the garden fall into disrepair. After Peter acquired it, he set about regenerating beds and restoring paths.
The garden covers four and a half acres and consists of several distinctive areas and features. There are long topiary hedges of Taxus baccata in cloud shapes surrounding a large flat lawned area with a reflecting pool and a double beech hedge around a long flight of stone steps descending from the hilltop house. There are herbaceous borders surrounding the house, terracing on the hillside and a tennis court converted to a vegetable garden. There is also a woodland area that has colourful foliage in autumn and a carpet of fallen leaves along the paths. The photographs were taken on a rainy day which intensified the colours of the foliage on the trees including many grand oaks around the garden.
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