|
Gloucestershire and Herefordshire
May, June and July
Monday 19th
May. Gloucestershire.
Barton House, Barton–on-the-Heath
and Chastleton Glebe, Chastleton.
 Barton
House is an impressive Elizabethan
building, but the real delight is
the garden which is a plant
enthusiast’s heaven. Hamish and
Gillian Cathie have taken advantage
of the underlying Greensand to
assemble a collection of highly
desirable plants; mostly shrubs and
trees including many magnolias, rare
Rhododendrons, Daphnes, Sorbus,
Acers, Liquidambars and Tulip trees,
as well as many tender specimens
that thrive in the shelter of south
facing walls. We move to Chastleton
Glebe, the home of writer and cook,
Prue Leith. Terraces (one
entirely red) by the house lead via
formal shrub rose garden to a rose
tunnel and below the main lawn, the
ground falls away to a lake
embellished with a Chinese pavilion
and bridge.
Monday 2nd
June.
Herefordshire. The Laskett,
Hereford and Birtsmorton Court,
Malvern.
 Birtsmorton
is a medieval dream of a house. In
the garden, a large square of old
yew hedges has been transformed into
a white garden, with sumptuous mixed
borders running round the outside of
the square. Beyond is a newly
created potager. In the afternoon
we go by coach to The Laskett, where
Sir Roy Strong has been working on
the garden since the 1970s. The
original garden was the result of a partnership between Roy Strong and his late
wife, the stage designer Julia Trevelyan Oman and was heavily planted to create
a cleverly interlocking series of rooms and vistas. In the last few years Roy
Strong has transformed the garden, opening up new vistas, and enlarging rooms to
give a greater feeling of space. This was already one of the
most interesting gardens of the
twentieth century and Roy Strong is
ensuring that it goes into the
twenty-first confident of holding
its place. He will conduct a tour of
the garden, explaining its history
and development.
Thursday
26th June.
Gloucestershire. Elmbank
Farmhouse, Cold Aston, Eyford and
Rockliffe, near Upper Slaughter.
 The
garden at Elmbank Farmhouse is only
three years old and shows what can
be achieved from scratch in a very
short space of time. Within a
framework of stone walls and
hornbeam hedges, formal borders were
planted to draw the eye towards a
fine Cotswold view. The garden at
Eyford is on a grander scale;
originally laid out by Graham Thomas
for the current owner’s parents, it
has been beautifully maintained and
developed. Formal, clipped shapes by
the house give onto a vista between
fine trees and shrubs up to a summer
house After lunch, we make our way
either on foot or by car across the
valley to Rockliffe, the garden made
by Emma Keswick. Here the
informality of crowded perennial
borders is complemented by clipped
box and pleached limes surrounding
formal pools.
1st
July.
Gloucestershire. Daglingworth
House, Moor Wood, Woodmancote and
Ablington Manor.
 David
and Etta Howard have had enormous
fun making the garden at
Daglingworth House over the last
dozen or so years. A formal canal
with pleached trees runs away from
the Georgian house. A recently
built summer house approached by a
‘secret’ passage dominates a cross
axis and new terraces have been made
in the last year. Henry and Susie
Robinson inherited Moor Wood and
almost by accident found themselves
forming the National Collection of
Rambler Roses in this lovely valley
setting. The garden at Ablington
Manor is exactly what an English
garden in June should be. Informal
borders riot against the old stone
walls while ancient clipped yews
give architectural solidity to the
froth of roses on the lawns and the
pergolas in the enclosed garden.
2nd
July.
Gloucestershire. Eastleach House,
Eastleach Martin, Oxleaze Farm,
Filkins and Westwell Manor.
 The
garden at Eastleach House has been
made by Stephanie Richards and is
much-illustrated in the gardening
magazines. Formal borders, a rill
garden below the house and an
enclosed pond garden give way to an
arboretum and meadow rich in
corncockles. Oxleaze Farm is across
the fields from Eastleach with long
views across the Thames towards the
Lambourn Downs. The garden is
enclosed by stone walls and the lush
planting of borders gives way to a
newly planted arboretum with mown
grass paths leading back to an
immaculate kitchen garden. Westwell
Manor is the creation of the
inventive garden designer, Anthea
Gibson, who will show us around the
garden. The main borders and the
wisteria-clad pergola are
traditional, but the black pool and
moon garden are decidedly
contemporary, the rill
inspirational, while the kitchen
garden evokes awe and envy in equal
measure.
 Cost
for each English Garden Day: £87.00
per person, to include entry to the
gardens, lunch and either coffee on
arrival or tea at the end of the
day. Please note that transport
between gardens is in your own car.
Cost for the 2nd June The Laskett
and Birtsmorton Court: £93.00 per
person, to include transport to The
Laskett from Birtsmorton Court by
coach.
Instructions, maps and directions to
the initial garden will be sent to
you before the day.
|
