The walled kitchen garden is full of lavender-edged borders and swaying grasses and the Norman church is now surrounded by greenery. Pear trees that were in blossom in the spring, now drip with ripening fruit. In July the garden is transformed. Around the house and the terraces shrubs give way to bedding plants, perennials, delicate…
Category: National Trust
Back in 1895, the National Trust was founded with the aim of saving our nation’s heritage and open spaces. A lot of open spaces are managed by the National Trust as well as historic houses and gardens.
Garden Portrait: Erddig
Erddig Hall is a National Trust property on the outskirts of Wrexham, Wales. Located 2 miles south of Wrexham town centre, it was built in 1684–1687 for Josiah Edisbury, the High Sheriff of Denbighshire. The garden and indeed the house, were in disrepair when the estate was handed over to the National Trust in 1973….
Garden Portrait: Powis Castle
The castle and garden is in Welshpool, Powys. The gardens are spread out over several Baroque terraces leading down through shrubs and giant cloud-shaped yew hedges to a large lawned area and a former kitchen garden and a woodland walk. All backed by a patchwork of fields, villages and hills of the Welsh border countryside….
Garden Portrait: Stourhead
Stourhead is often called “one of the most beautiful of this country’s landscape gardens” with a gentle harmonious planting of broad-leaved trees, conifers and rhododendrons. The valley landscape began in the 1740s by Henry Hoare II who had returned from a three-year tour of Italy and was inspired by the Roman Campagna ( a low-lying area…
Garden Portrait: Snowshill Manor
Snowshill Manor near Broadway, Gloucestershire, is probably visited mainly for the eclectic collections of the architect, artist and woodworker Charles Paget Wade who purchased the house in 1919. The beautiful honey-coloured stone Cotswold house is set within the fresh green countryside and situated on a steeply sloping plot. To reach the garden from the National…
Garden Portrait: Spring at Hinton Ampner
This Georgian house stands on a ridge of chalk above well-treed farmland in Bramdean, Hampshire. It was inherited by Ralph Dutton, the 8th and last Lord Sherborne, in 1935 and he devoted the next fifty years to improving it. Author of ‘The English Garden’ he produced a very elegant house, landscaped gardens and parkland. On…
Garden Portrait: Polesden Lacey
I have visited Polesden Lacey a few times, but always too late for the wonderful Mrs Greville’s Rose Garden. This National Trust owned property is in Great Bookham, Surrey and designed as the perfect setting for entertaining royalty, politicians and the top dogs of the Edwardian society. Just a little second home then. I’ve never…
Garden Portrait: Scotney Castle
Scotney Castle and Garden lies in west Kent close to Lamberhurst village and is one of the most romantic landscape gardens designed in the picturesque style. The planting is very natural with the ruins of the 14† century Old Castle at its centre. The ‘new’ castle was built in 1835 which was when the gardens around…
Garden Portrait: Knightshayes Court
Driving back from West Penwith to Shropshire takes around 5 hours. It’s a long journey and we usually stop after a couple of hours to stretch the legs and grab a coffee. Gilly the Lucid Gypsy who lives in Exeter once suggested that we might like to stop at Knightshayes Court, a house and garden…
Garden Portrait: Autumn Sizzle
Originally landscaped by Capability Brown in 1776 from surrounding woodland is Sheffield Park in East Sussex. A garden for all seasons, it is during autumn when it is at its most magnificent. Lambent tongues of orange, gold and vermilion burns brightly against a cobalt sky. Japanese maples, fothergillas (mountain witch alder), Liquidambar styraciflua (sweet gum),…
Garden Portrait: More from Nymans
In the late 1800’s Ludwig Messel bought the Nymans Estate in the Sussex High Weald to make a dream family home. The gardens were inspired by the influential writer William Robinson, and were filled with rare plants and colourful herbaceous borders. The man most responsible for creating the gardens that Messel visualised was James Comber,…
Garden Portrait: Nymans
Late summer and a break in the awful wet weather enabled me to pop along to Nymans Garden in West Sussex. My main reason for visiting was to look at the summer borders in the Wall Garden encouraged by Gilly of Lucid Gypsy and capture some of the late summer colours. Of course I couldn’t…
