Julie Toll – The Manor House, Ayot St Lawrence
Julie Toll has won seven gold medals for show gardens at Chelsea and the six acres of garden at the Manor House Ayot St Lawrence demonstrate her subtle but confident skills as both designer and plantswoman. Around the venerable, elegant house of warm brick and tiles she has, over a period of years, created a series of interlinking gardens for the owners Rob and Sara Lucas who have opened the garden for the National Garden Scheme for many years.
Photo credit above: Marianne Majerus
A Closer Look…
There is design pedigree at the Manor House, no less a figure than John Brookes worked here for a previous owner, Jacqueline Duncan, who founded the famous Inchbald School of Design. Features of their garden have been sensitively retained, but in the main the garden today is Julie Toll’s work, combining a reassuring but lively blend of country house classic with contemporary confidence.
Statement planting such as brilliant borders of pale-yellow iris and the rich colours of tender delights in the conservatory are matched by striking ornamental pairs of gates, intricate brick patterns in the parterre and an immaculate series of brick-edged raised beds screened by a stilt hornbeam hedge in the reworked walled kitchen garden.
To find out when The Manor House opens again click here
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