Lower Brookshill, Shropshire: a garden transformed

Patricia and Robin Oldfield moved to Lower Brookshill in 2010, looking for a small retirement project, but what they found were ten acres of overgrown land and a shell of a house in its centre.

Masses of brambles and dying trees were not enough to put Patricia and Robin off the project, who decided with plenty of hard work it would be possible to release the potential of the garden.

Join them now, ten years later, to discover the garden’s transformation…

A closer look…

Lower Brookshill comprises 10 acres of mainly hillside garden and woods in the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The start of the River West Onny meanders through the property and there are stunning views over and down a valley.

You arrive at a ‘pocket’ park with a bog garden and a meandering brook. Up in the main garden there are mixed borders, lawns and several ponds including one with more than a nod to Monet’s lily pond at Giverny. There is a traditional miner’s-style cottage fronted by a cottage garden, and a shepherd’s hut sits within an annual wildflower display.

A brookside walk passes around a wild wet wood and returns to the main garden past a variety of trees, deer sculptures and the occasional cultivated woodland edge border.