The Cottage

About The Cottage

The Cottage was built in 1905 in woodland but nothing is known of the garden then. A garden visitor who lived here as a girl in WWII only remembers the air raid shelter. In 1950 Guy and Margaret Bishop bought it and found ‘holly scrub, delphiniums and a row of cabbages’ and began landscaping and planting. We came in 1982. So for over 70 years the garden has been designed planted and cared for by only 2 garden loving families.

The front woodland of mature oaks and Scots Pines has camellias (over 30 varieties), azaleas and rhododendrons underplanted with spring bulbs, erythroniums and trilliums.

There are fine non-native trees including Pinus montezuma, Phellodendron amurense and Embothrium coccccineum.

Natural springs supply our bog garden and damp areas near our 2 ponds which are wildlife havens along with uncultivated areas and piles of decaying wood. The open, drier sunnier areas have herbaceous beds with sculptural plants, winter barks and seasonal planting. We have shady areas but less than before as in April 2012 one of our mighty oaks blew down in a gale. Our May visitors could see it lying across an herbaceous bed, bog lawn and bog garden and right through the hedge onto our neighbours’ drive. It is amazing how quickly the plants came back once the tree was cleared. In 2023 another oak came down so we now have a lot more light for our replacement greenhouse, fruit cage and pergola..

We sell honey from our garden beehives for NGS. Unfortunately our free range bantams do not lay enough to provide eggs for sale.

Anne Swithinbank said it is ‘a lovely tranquil garden’ when she visited with GQT
We have opened for NGS since 1986 .We enjoy sharing our garden with visitors. Their comments include ‘ excellent plant stall ‘ ‘it is worth coming for the china’ ‘what a choice of cakes including homemade Battenberg!’ ‘wonderful birdsong’ ‘so peaceful’ ‘mini Exbury’ In 2016 we were presented with a sundial to thank us for opening for the scheme for 30 years.

We thank Barclays Bank for contributing up to £750 a year in matching pound for pound raised by its retired staff. We have a team of loyal helpers, tea ladies, cake bakers and plant propagators without whom our open days would not be so successful.