In the garden
One of the highlights of The Newt is undoubtedly the garden. The website explains all the background and history to the site, so rather than expand on that here, join us on our first walk around on a January afternoon.
We’d booked ourselves on a garden tour when we arrived, thinking that an overview of the estate would be a good idea to get us started. The plan was to meet a gardener at the Threshing Barn, a short walk down from the house and so we began by walking through the formal gardens (restricted to hotel guests) to the garden gate.
The Threshing Barn is one of several recently constructed buildings which form a focus for the visitor services. Here are the loos, the shops and counters serving food and drink, arranged around a firepit.
We admired the seating area arranged beneath some pleached plane trees. Our first impressions were good. Everything was beautifully designed and the detail was very impressive indeed.
We met the gardener by the firepit and listened as she explained her background as a kitchen gardener to the ten of us and of her plans to begin by showing us around the walled garden.
The walled garden was just “below” where we stood; the whole site being on a gentle slope.
We set off downhill, towards the opening in the wall, noticing as we went, the glazed front of the Garden Cafe on the hill just across the way.
Actually, the first thing we noted was the abundance of exquisitely trained fruit trees along every wall we could see. Someone had been very, very busy!
Most of these trees were apple varieties, grouped into county areas and planted very closely together in what appeared to be very rich and totally weed free soil, banked with extra mulch. Can there be more carefully tended trees anywhere?
Each of the branches was trained and tied into a framework according to its position and in some cases, a wayward branch was weighted down Japanese-style to persuade it further into the right place. Such care had been taken that this took on the nature of an art form, especially as the framework of the shapes was so clearly visible in the January sunshine.
Each area of the garden contained a focal point; here a double helix trained apple surrounded by rosemary (I think).
The tree in the mirror-image area across the way had been similarly trained into a more complex spiral. I couldn’t have imagined how much time, imagination and skill had gone into that creation!
There was so much to admire and to covet, like the total absence of algae in the rill!
Making our way down through the various sections of the upper part of the “egg”, we agreed, we should return later in the year to see how all of this looks in the Summer, when the evidence of all the work is overshadowed by the beauty of the blossom, the leaves and eventually, the fruit.
The focus of the lower section of the egg shaped garden is a small series of terraced buildings: the hen house. Normally, we were told, the hens had free range of the garden and would be seen around and about the place. But currently, avian flu restrictions require birds to be kept under cover and for now, the chickens must stay inside their cosy cottages.
We continued our walk down through the “tunnel”, which would be planted with squash (I believe) during the summer. Like everything else, this was a beautiful construction, built to last!
The kitchen garden was, just as the part we’d seen already, pristine and totally weed free. Each square bed was neatly edged and had an irrigation point in each corner. Our guide said there was a rabbit-proof border around the whole area and that shortly, some rescued hedgehogs were going to be introduced to this area too.
Not the best time to view such a garden with so few vegetables growing in the winter, but the Swiss chard provided a shot of colour at least.
We carried on through the garden gate then, towards the cottage. Here, at the foot of the cascade was a fun collection of frogs, arranged in a series of small pools framed by the most exquisite setting of pebbles imaginable.
The precise placement of each pebble, the grading of size and the geometry involved was just another breathtaking aspect of the build here. Mind you, as we stood admiring the workmanship, one of those pesky frogs spouted a small jet of water in my direction with pinpoint accuracy as well!
We carried on up the side of the cascade without lingering further
directly into the cottage garden. Here was one feature of the original garden - not recently constructed - and the place where our garden tour came to a conclusion with a mug of hot mulled apple juice.
Inside the cottage was the perfect place to dry flowers and herbs. The scent was wonderful!
As we stood enjoying our mulled juice, we noticed other small details such as the coins set into the paving. There are so many things to observe, to notice and to appreciate!
The apple motif in the drainage gratings for instance; the apple being a theme throughout the garden.
By now the sun had gone behind the clouds and it was starting to get chilly. It was time to head back to the hotel.
We returned along the path by the colour gardens. Not much colour here right now and much empty space where it will surely appear later in the season.
For now, there’s just the odd clump of snowdrops, a single red flower looking very much out of season in the next plot and, just when we had given up…
the blue garden was home to a glorious blast of colour!
With privileged access through the garden gate, we entered the hotel through the back door, via the boot room. No worries about bringing suitable footwear as there’s a good collection on hand here for those days when shoes are not enough.
I wasn’t going to need shoes where I planned to go next though!
