The hen patch just above the courtyard was always there, with its dacha-like hen house sheltering under a dark pink-flowered horse chestnut, which Simon has echoed with scarlet hawthorns along the neighbouring track. Somerset Blue Lias cobbles – ‘the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought,’ he admits – spill out onto the track, creating a welcoming, settled feel, and a sense that Manor Farm has always been like this.
A mown path leads past drifts of Camassia leichtlinii ‘Alba’ up to an orchard of ancient cider apple trees.
Howard Sooley
Higher again is the kitchen garden– a working area full of charm with oversized Victorian terracotta rhubarb forcers, hazel pea tunnels and lines of chives. Opposite this is Simon’s greenhouse, inside which there is a chintz-covered chair and a radio for listening to the cricket while he’s potting on.
As you move away from the house, you walk through a grove of white-flowering summer trees, including Cornus kousa and Magnolia sieboldii ‘Pride of Norway’, passing Alexa’s studio in a converted open barn (with its veranda for Persian-carpeted picnics to admire the orchards’ spring blossom), until you reach the restored woodland and ponds. Here, you’ll find snowdrops, bluebells and wild garlic at this time of the year, and towering fronds of Osmunda regalis and huge-leaved hostas in summer.
Clipped box and spires of purple foxgloves and ‘Masterpiece’ lupins punctuate beds of Welsh poppies, geraniums, pink ‘Fantin-Latour’ roses and Paeonia lactiflora ‘Bowl of Beauty’ framing the façade of Manor Farm, which is swathed in wisteria and cream rambling rose ‘Albéric Barbier’.
Howard Sooley
Keen to share his unstoppable new passion, Simon now leads garden tours with his friend, the writer Jason Goodwin. As they visit outstanding private gardens, mostly belonging to local friends, guests are welcomed with a generosity and warm attention to detail you’d expect from a gardener who has created this tenderly cared for, utterly beautiful garden of his own.
G&T Garden Tours: gtgardentours.co.uk
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