Thirty-six Friends and guests left The Savill Garden coach park early on the morning of 29 June, heading for Herefordshire to see seven gardens over four days – quite a daunting prospect, but well worth it.
All the gardens were different, and we are certain everyone had their favourite but, because they were so different, it was difficult to choose.
Day one
The Friends started off with The Laskett Gardens, designed by Sir Roy Strong and his wife Julia Trevelyan Oman which demonstrated their talent for theatrical design.
Day two
The next day in a slight drizzle we went to two gardens – in the morning, Hampton Court Castle which had an amazing walled garden both for flowers and vegetables and an incredible maze which our own Brenda Tong, Events Co-ordinator, nearly got lost in.
In the afternoon we went to Stockton Bury Gardens, a small four-acre site full of wonderful plants and we were taken around by a member of the family who had created it.
Day three
The Old Rectory at Thruxton was simply amazing – the family had bought the house and five acres some seventeen years ago. At that point it had three large trees and nothing else but grass, since then they have transformed it into a space full of colour and interesting plants.
In what had been a hard tennis court there was now a large vegetable garden surrounded on one side by the house and on another by a tall stone wall against which the family had grown espalier fruits trees including an apricot which was covered in enormous fruit.
In the afternoon we went on to the Westonbury Mill Water Garden which was a much more casual garden where you could wander across ponds on rather rickety walkways to see several follies, including a water driven cuckoo clock.
Westonbury Mill Water Garden
Day four
On our last day we began with a visit to Brockhampton Cottage which had been inherited by Peter Clay, founder of Crocus; the wholesale nursery based in Windlesham.
The views from the top of the hill were breath-taking and to get there we walked up through a wildflower meadow he had created.
Tom Stuart-Smith had helped create a garden surrounding the house and as he told us on the visit, all the colours were chosen to compliment the stone of the house. Visually it was spectacular, and we had to be dragged away to go to our final garden at Westbury Court.
Westbury Court is one of the last surviving 17th Century Dutch water gardens in the UK, with wonderful canals full of carp and surrounded by some enormous trees including a Holme Oak, which is reputed to be the oldest and largest in the country.
We finally got back to The Savill Garden coach park in the early evening, all still digesting what we had seen over the 4 days we had been away.
Written by Brenda Tong, Events Co-ordinator for The Friends of The Savill Garden
