Our Garden
Set within three acres of private grounds, Pond Cottage offers plenty of outdoor space to relax and unwind. The gardens combine two acres of meadow dotted with trees and an old orchard, with a more formal acre of mixed borders, a sunny Mediterranean-style courtyard, and a natural pond teeming with wildlife. One of the garden’s highlights is its wonderful collection of roses — more than a hundred plants in total — providing colour and fragrance from spring through to autumn.
Garden elements to explore
The Courtyard Garden
Our Mediterranean plants—including olive and fig trees, lavender, heathers, and thyme—thrive in the south-facing Courtyard Garden, alongside more exotic bursts of colour from bougainvillea, bright red geraniums, and canna lilies in summer. This small but productive area yields peaches, tomatoes, grapes, figs, and lemons during the warmer months, with herbs available all year round. It’s a sunny, sheltered spot—perfect for enjoying breakfast, afternoon tea, or simply a cup of coffee while watching the birds.
The Rose Cutting Garden
Surrounding the Courtyard is a newly planted border of mixed hybrid and floribunda roses, chosen for their diverse colours and forms—perfect for cutting and bringing indoors. The roses are edged by a low rosemary hedge, which we are doing our best to coax into thriving in our unwieldy clay soil!
Herbaceous Borders
Stepping up from the Courtyard through the rose cutting garden brings you to the lawns and the many herbaceous borders beyond. These mixed borders are filled with shrubs, small trees, and perennials, along with as many annuals, biennials, and bulbs as we can possibly squeeze in. They are also home to mature climbing and rambling roses—some planted more than two decades ago—which put on a magnificent display when they burst into bloom in late May and throughout June.
Wildlife Pond
To the east of the house lies Pond Cottage’s namesake feature—a large, naturally formed pond shaded by two veteran oak trees. The pond attracts a wealth of wildlife, including frogs, toads, newts, dragonflies, pond skaters, beetles, hedgehogs, and numerous birds, with the occasional waterfowl appearing in early spring. The largest oak has served as a roost for pipistrelle bats and a tawny owl, and it becomes a favourite haunt for squirrels in the autumn.
The Old Orchard
Beyond the formal garden to the west lie the still fruitful remnants of an old orchard, where very tall, venerable perry pear trees stand alongside smaller, old cider apple trees. We cut winding walkways through the grass meadows for gentle wandering and mow the meadows only once a year, at the end of summer, after the wildflowers and grasses have set seed.
Reflection Corner
To the north of Pond Cottage, behind the outbuildings and vegetable garden, lies another meadow with mown walkways for wandering, framed by informal mixed borders. A lovely place to pause—tea in hand or otherwise—is beneath the rose arch in “Reflection Corner,” an area of the garden that truly does what it says on the tin.
The National Garden Scheme
In 2025, Pond Cottage joined the National Garden Scheme, a charity that gives visitors unique access to around 3,500 exceptional privately owned gardens throughout the country and raises significant amounts of money for nursing and health charities through admissions, teas and cake. The Scheme was founded in 1927 with the aim of “opening gardens of quality, character and interest to the public for charity” and has raised over £67 million since its inception. King Charles III has been patron of the charity since 2002.
During our first Open Garden weekend in June, along with several private viewings throughout the season, we welcomed around 400 visitors and raised just under £4,000 for the charity.
Hear What Visitors Have to Say
