Books on garden design mention how to use a focal point in a garden, but they also stress that it shouldn’t dominate and take the eye away from the plants. You should also only be able to see one feature at a time so that it leads you through the garden. I wonder how we would all have dealt with the structure that we saw yesterday, what would we have made of this….?
Charlton Viaduct
……..and yes, it is IN the garden! And all paths are done with concrete driveways specialists!
Rose garden. Kilver Court Garden
We were at Kilver Court Garden, Shepton Mallett, Somerset. Kilver Court is a collection of old factory buildings, opposite the Bulmers Cider factory, that have now been turned into designer/boutique shops, restaurant and wedding venue. The garden was created over 100 yrs ago by Ernest Jardine for his factory workers (what a lovely boss) and was later transformed in the 1960s by the Showering family of Babycham fame.
Ex Chelsea Flower Show Rockery.
The Rock garden was adapted from a Chelsea Flower Show exhibit in the 1960’s and extended to fit the site. It must be nice to be able to just point at an exhibition garden and say, Yes, I’ll have that one please, get it delivered! Thinking about it though, would we really want a garden that didn’t have any input from us ? But I’m getting ahead of myself, lets go back to the rose garden.
Rose garden.
Maybe Gertrude Jekyll.
The four outer flower beds were filled with this beautiful rose and what a beautiful perfume she had too.
Unknown blue? rose.
The four central beds were full of this strange rose, no perfume and they didn’t die gracefully, I’m afraid I thought they looked a rather a mess.
Dahlias with Aconitum in the distance.
Once past the rose garden, there were a couple of herbacious beds where dahlias were the main feature.
Dahlias with Charlton viaduct.
Now some facts and figures about the viaduct. It is 317 yds long and 45 ft tall. It has 27 arches with a span of 28ft. It was built in 1874 and the railway closed in 1966. It has been a grade 2* listed monument since 1952. How many of us would like this in our garden, the listing means it cannot be altered. I think the undergardener would be quite happy to have it in his garden!
Dahlias and Aconitum.
These two plants went so well together, the blue of the Aconitum was almost luminous, such a super blue.
Lake to one side
There is a large lake to one side with beautiful reflections of the viaduct and the planting.
Rockery and stream.
The main part of the garden is the famous rockery, it has appeared on the BBC 2 programme, Gardener’s World . The stream was very well done and the planting around it looked very much at home.
Acers.
There were lots of Acers.
Autumn tints.
The garden had a very high standard of maintenance. Weddings are held here, so it has to look good all year round for the wedding photos.
Ceratostigma plumbaginoides
I was so taken with this plant, with it’s blue flowers, but especially it’s autumn foliage, during the summer the foliage is green. It has gone onto my list of “must haves”.
Conifers.
Being a ’60’s garden, there are lots of conifers, some are now being trimmed and are topiarised into different shapes.
Morina longifolia identified by Alison.
I should know this plant,about 2 ft tall with beautifully perfumed flowers and very prickly leaves, can anyone help please? Behind is a Persicaria, at first I thought there was lots of heather (well, they were planted along with conifers in the 60’s) but there was such a variety of persicaria plants everywhere, another to go onto my list!
More Acers.
Artimesia making a lovely contrast with the Acers.
Herbacious border.
We walked through the archways and found an herbacious border. Once again the Aconitums are really standing out at the back.
No more trains!
Oh dear, I hope the undergardener isn’t hoping to see a steam train, he’ll have a long wait!
Lake with boathouse.
The thatch in the front right corner is the roof of the boathouse. There are a few duck houses in the lake, so the ducks will be safe laying there eggs away from foxes.
Colourful Acer, beautiful.
A last look at the garden.
and a last look at the viaduct.
Believe it or not, this wasn’t the real reason we came to Somerset. We came to visit the East Somerset Steam Railway. Visiting the garden , which was only 10 minutes away from the station, was just filling in time!
Ist class carriage.
Way back at the beginning of summer, the Undergardener was given a present of a train ride for his Birthday, with Cream Tea provided and a visit to the workshops. It took us till now to find a date, we were booked on the 3.30pm train.
Cream Tea.
The scones were lovely, but we had a dilemma, in Cornwall, they put their jam on first, then the cream, we in Devon put the cream on first, then the jam, but what do they do in Somerset?! We went with cream first, then jam.
Our steam engine.
And this was the engine we rode behind while eating our cream tea with lots of tea to drink.
We both had a really wonderful day. I’m thinking we might just manage to fit one more garden visit in this year, we will go searching for some autumn tints. All the way along the dual carriageway to Somerset, most of the trees at the roadside are Field Maples and they had all turned a beautiful buttery yellow, even the Undergardener commented on how beautiful they all looked!
The unknown plant is Morina longifolia. Such fabulous autumn color on that Plumbago. I have one plant in an out of the way spot, that I hardly ever notice. But it did stay quite green during our very hot, dry summer, and is now flowering. I might give it a more prominent spot soon. Your cream tea looks delicious. I adore scones and those look scrummy (as Mary Berry says). My undergardener would have loved that train ride!
Many thanks for the ID Alison, I must look for some seeds to sow. The colours in the garden were so vibrant, you wouldn’t have thought it was almost the end of October!
I have been surprised at the number of undergardeners there are who are Railway buffs, it’s so good when we can find both our interests in the same place.
What a beautiful place, Pauline, and it must be the perfect time of the year to visit. I have added it to my “to visit” list ! Glad you both had such a good day.
It was a beautiful garden Rosemarie, so colourful for this time of year. I’ve been onto their website and they have some lovely pics there of rhododendrons and azaleas, so spring should be good too.
We visited Kilver a couple of years ago, you have brought back a lot of memories with your post. We had made a detour to visit Kilver enroute to Cornwall visiting friends. The viaduct looked almost bereft now its out of use and made us feel quite sad for what we could of seen there. Your steam train visit looks just the ticket though.
So glad it brought back happy memories Julie. It is a shame that no steam trains run across the viaduct any more, maybe they could park one there!The train ride and cream tea was very good and made the perfect end to a super day.
he can dream … and there was a train, later.
My Ungardener would also be on the train!
He’s always dreaming about trains Diana, in fact anything on rails! So many of us seem to have railway mad undergardeners, it nice when we can find something for him not too far away from a good garden, we both come home very happy!
Oh ….how I love that entire garden! The viaduct is just fantastic, along with the boathouse and lake. Your train ride sounds marvelous too, you two are as bad as us for trying to squeeze these sort of trips in. What a splendid day!xxx
The garden was superb Dina, with so much colour for the end of October. The viaduct was a huge focal point, but a lovely structure to have at the back of the garden, certainly different, no-one else has anything like it !Trips out together are very special as we seem to do rather a lot separately, the train ride and cream tea made the day very special indeed!
What a splendid day out and what an immaculate, nostalgic garden. I’ve been hoping to visit this garden since watching the GW feature, so thank you for the timely reminder – the lure of cream tea on a steam train will go down well with someone.
Yes, it was a nostalgic garden Kate, very much in the style of the 60s but with grasses added to bring it more up to date. Rides with cream teas have to be booked in advance, but we can certainly recommend the outing.
That’s what I miss Pauline, the possibility of visiting a garden on the way to somewhere else. I certainly wouldn’t want a structure as large as that in the garden, but they have made it an asset.
The viaduct was so huge Christina, to start with, I thought I couldn’t ever live with it, but by the time we went to go to the Railway,I was quite used to it and even missing it if it wasn’t on the photos! It was certainly different!