The Walled Garden was redesigned in 1991 when ‘..the space was divided into several contrasting ‘ornamental gardens’. These include spectacular double-sided herbaceous borders, Italian garden, formal rose parterre (with over 150 varieties of rose), fruit and vegetable garden, glass house, rustic temple, statues, fountains and Jeppe Hein’s ‘Waterflame’..’. It was a very gloomy, windy, chilly day so the photographs are rather sombre.

The Italian Garden is on the left as one’s walks into the Walled Garden – a cool, green, elegant space – lovely.

The Formal Rose Garden is opposite the Italian Garden and very ‘English’, with beds, borders, statues, and fountains.

There are two very large fruit and vegetable gardens in the Walled Garden, with lots of espaliered fruit trees, and even fruit trees grown over arches. It seemed to me that the emphasis was on creating beautiful gardens rather than heavily productive vegetable beds – but perhaps I am wrong..?

The dahlia border on one side of the fruit and vegetables was interesting because the flowers are grown in squares of supporting canes. There were some wonderful blooms, including Gerry Hoek, a dahlia which my mother loved to grow and which I remember from my childhood in Pretoria.

Gerry Hoek

Enormous red dahlia – don’t know the name

Catherine de Neuve

Pfitzers Joker

The Mediterranean Garden has box hedging and a fountain and was peaceful.

Alongside the walls was this formal garden – there are 5 acres to fill!

The herbaceous borders in the middle of the Walled Garden are English in style and quite startling after wandering through Piet Oudolf’s swathes of colour at Pensthorpe.

There was even a rustic temple!

And there were beautiful hydrangeas along the outside ‘walls’ of the Walled Garden.