Hidden behind ancient walls, this beautiful garden is in full bloom in spring
Gothic stonework surrounds this newly created garden, blending modern planting with elements that hark back to medieval times
Secret gardens never seem to lose their romantic appeal. Fiona Cadwallader and Patrick Heren were touched by that timeless thrill when they caught the first glimpse of the walled enclave, framed by a Gothic-style doorway, belonging to their new home. ‘With the ancient walls and riverside setting, the garden has a slightly monastic feel. From the village street, you would never guess it is here,’ says Fiona. The half-acre garden is fully enclosed within time-worn walls built from Caen stone, Kentish rag and flint. On the far side, a gate opens out onto the River Stour which, from Saxon times, was part of the port of Sandwich and held by St Augustine’s Abbey. ‘The garden has been cultivated for some 800 years,’ says Fiona.
She spent the first year observing the garden in different seasons, noting what plants emerged. ‘Despite being a northfacing garden, it had distinct promise – the bones were good, but it was very shrubby with lots of evergreens, and the terrace was far too close to the back of the house,’ she says. From the outset,
Fiona envisaged a garden that reflected a variety of different moods and styles – a spring garden, a formal terrace, a shady woodland, a small potager and a secret garden. ‘I wanted to create a country house garden in miniature,’ she says. This was a tall order in a plot that is wider than it is deep. ‘Being enclosed, the garden doesn’t benefit from any borrowed landscape, so a sense of intrigue and interest can only come from within,’ she says.
A further challenge was the irregular shape of the plot. ‘The old walls narrow progressively from the house towards the back wall,’ says Fiona. Her design, incorporating new paths, a terrace and pergola that are squared up to the house, allows for the borders to take up the slack. ‘Once the borders were planted >
❝WHEN WE MOVED HERE, THE GARDEN WAS BARE IN SPRING, BUT NOW THERE ARE LOTS OF LITTLE POCKETS OF INTEREST TO CATCH YOUR EYE ❞
up, they cunningly disguised any irregularity,’ says Fiona.
‘I think the secret behind successful garden design lies in taking major structural decisions early on. The brick walls also badly needed softening with plants.’
Among those chosen by Fiona for the job were hellebores, violets, Alchemilla mollis, Clematis macropetala ‘Maidwell Hall’ and climbing roses. The pergola separates the main lawn from the spring garden, following the line of a path that leads to the secret garden via an archway in a wall. ‘The arch was in the wrong place for my design, so we removed each stone, numbered and photographed it, and constructed a template to ensure it went back exactly as it was in its new location, with the addition of a broken door jamb we recovered from the house wall.’ The pergola’s Gothic-style arches frame views of the spring garden beyond, affording vistas-in-miniature of mature pollarded lime trees standing between clumps of daffodils, camassias, bluebells and snake’s-head fritillaries that peep up through the grass. ‘This corner has given us an imaginary borrowed landscape,’ says Fiona.
Being a north-facing garden, there is a lot of shade but Fiona has found many beautiful plants that thrive out of direct sunlight. ‘The colour palette is very restful – greens, whites and lime splashed with some blue,’ she says. In winter, sarcococca wafts fragrance between bare shrubs in the secret garden, before hellebores, brunnera, Omphalodes cappadocica ‘Cherry Ingram’, Cardamine quinquefolia, epimediums, pulmonarias and veratrum arrive. As spring advances, it brings the purple-flowered dusky cranesbill Geranium phaeum ‘Lily Lovell’, various euphorbias and narcissus>
❝Borders line the pathways around the garden ensuring colour, texture, height and variety throughout every season❞
– ‘Thalia’, ‘Minnow’ and ‘Baby Moon’ – and a particular favourite, Tulipa ‘Triumphator’. Near the arch, there is a Fothergilla major, a special delight when it breaks out in creamy bottlebrush-like flowers in spring, creating a lovely combination with Fiona’s Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Irene Paterson’.
The garden’s structure relies upon a number of evergreen shrubs such as the lovely fragrant Viburnum x burkwoodii ‘Anne Russell’, camellias and pittosporums that screen the house from a neighbouring car park, along with a variegated holly and an Acer platanoides ‘Drummondii’, with its unmistakable foliage. In the long borders edging the main lawn, terrace and pergola, spring breezes in on a carpet of forget-me-nots, a perfect foil to tulips and white narcissi. They fade away to make room for peonies and bearded irises. By midsummer, wisteria and roses clothe the pergola and walls, while foxgloves and delphiniums fill the borders. The garden is blessed with wonderful mature trees, such as 200-year-old yews. But Fiona has made her own mark, adding an Indian horse chestnut, winter cherry, several clerodendrum, magnolias, a Judas tree and flowering cherries.
With its tranquil corners, beautiful planting and long pathways to stroll along, this is a garden that feels as if it has always been there. ‘We’ve aimed to create a garden that inhabits and reinterprets an ancient site in a quietly generous, profoundly English style,’ says Fiona. ‘It’s an endless source of beauty and calm and there is always something beautiful to look forward to.’ Fiona opens her garden to visitors in aid of the National Gardens Scheme on 25 April and 13 June (ngs.org.uk).