Synopsis
The garden 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 a pool and a double beech hedge around a long flight of stone steps descending from the hilltop house. Herbaceous borders surround the house, terracing covers the hillside and a tennis court has been converted to an elaborate vegetable garden. Distinctive Chinese red painted benches and chairs provide pops of colour around the garden.
One of Peter’s roles at the Gardens Trust is helping to preserve important gardens. He’s certainly doing that here in his own garden.
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