Belmont Park

The gardens were empty and the Shakespeare play cancelled, but the charming old stables tea room was buzzing as the rain poured. I went to see Arabella Lennox Boyd's planting of the vegetable garden and was not disappointed: beautiful fecund and romantic, with great plant combinations and a pleasing simplicity of layout. The design is very attractive, although my husband found the pond too small and the paths too wide for the scale. Sure the vertical space will work better when the crab apples have grown taller, and the (many) iron pergolas look a little stranded in the paths layout, but overall a beautiful garden and very well tended with healthy flowers, fruit and vegetables in abundance. A shame the gardener was not there to tell us who eats them, since the house is now a Trust.
The walled gardens near the house have lovely painted doors and none locked, so one felt truely like an invited explorer in a private garden. The rest of the planting run of the mill Edwardian, the show now stolen by the vegetable garden.

(4.0/5)