Porters Lodge

About Porters Lodge

Gardens through history, have been designed as someone’s personal paradise and this is ours. Secluded and surrounded by a mature and sheltering wood, the heart of the garden is composed of a series of three lawns. These are linked by an encircling walk which joins space after space, each different in scale and shape and all enlivened by varying water features, sculptural figures and architectural follies.

Mixed borders of herbaceous plants and flowering shrubs line and give colour to the most formal lawn and make corridors of selected colours linking parts of the garden. This central garden is surrounded by two acres of less formal spaces joined by an outer route both through the fringes and into the woodland with linking paths back to the inner walk. This is a garden for walking through: wherever one is, something of interest beckins one on, or a path curves seductively away for sitting in and just enjoying the calm spaces and resting. Seats in the shade of the tall trees are cool on the hottest days and yet the surrounding woods shelter all the garden from excessive wind and cold.

Of all the features, the most interesting is a water organ, unique in this country and possibly anywhere today. Inspired by those built in Italy in the sixteenth century, especially that at the Villa d’Este, the organ is powered by water cascading down from the roof of the pavilion to drive a water wheel. This provides the power to play machanically music originally composed by Haydn for small clock organs. It probably isn’t possible to design a garden today and not be influenced by both the past and foreign ideas. Much can be seen here: the formality of the Italian school to give a central structure but mostly the informality beloved of the English.

Baroque or Gothick structures in the follies, cassical cast statuary, chinoisery in the ironwork and with Moghul waterworks, the result is still, essentially and unmistakably, English. This unusual and interesting garden has been developed over the last eleven years and, although the layout is complete, it becomes richer in its fascination year by year, prompting many visitors to return ear year inquiring ‘what is new this time’.