This is a relatively new garden, dating from 1996, but is already showing great potential. When Peter and Caroline Roberts purchased the house and grounds there was little in the way of a garden; what is more they had little experience of gardening, Peter’s background was in the leisure industry. They were though heavily influenced by Alan Clark and from him caught the Rhododendron bug.

Peter Roberts started with several distinct advantages: a large site, the drive and imagination to do something with it, the finances to achieve a large garden, and an appreciation of his technical limitation and a readiness to find good advice. The thing though that made the garden was that, like all real gardens, it was created for purely personal reasons. The Roberts started off with the intention of making themselves a garden and as these things often do it quickly took on a life of its own. It remains a family garden, the ownership has now been moved to a charity but one controlled by the family.

The garden is principally Rhododendrons complemented by other Himalayan plants and the garden only opens in spring and autumn, although the on-site nursery can supply plants all year round. This really is its Achilles Heel, outside of these limited opening times the garden has far less to attract the visitor. Combined with the poor access up a long single-track lane it is hard to see how the garden can be self-supporting in the long term when the Roberts family can no longer make up any short fall between the cost of maintaining the gardens and the income that can be generated from plant sales and visitors.