This garden melds antiquity and nature with the delicate controlling touch of man. The half timbered manor house, which is mainly medieval, was restored in 1910 under the supervision of the renowned English architect Edwin Lutyens. The garden structure also contains Lutyens features within a layout by Nathaniel Lloyd, it's owner at that time.

The planting of the gardens today reflects the carefully contrived planting principles of the late Christopher Lloyd, son of Nathaniel, author, columnist and lecturer on garden plants and design. The amazing thing about this garden is that one season's planting is designed, especially in the borders, to flow seamlessly into the next. The aim is to have new growth coming up to hide the old as it dies down.

Different parts of the garden have a horticultural thread running through their entirety, in the form of such as apparently self seeded forget-me-nots and ladybird poppies. Christopher inherited his mother's love of informality and this befits the cottage garden style which surrounds the old house. Besides the colourful formal planting, significant areas are left as meadow, where wild orchids and other self seeded wild plants are encouraged by a sympathetic mowing regime. There is also a structural thread running throughout the garden. This is the hundreds of old flagstones brought from the City of London by railway and then horse and cart and laid out as paths at the time of the garden's construction by Nathaniel and Lutyens. www.sisley.co.uk

Written by  Tony Sissons.

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