Bridport Gardening Club

A place of legend where the old and very young find somewhere that speaks to them through ancient walls, colour and design, foliage, or water flowing through the decades: to be glimpsed as a memory at a later age. From the Dean’s Eye, across Cathedral Green then over a draw-bridged moat, we hear of a garden prior to Bishop Jocelyn’s palace and camery, (medieval garden) created early in the 13th century. Later that century the chapel and one of the[…]

Mottisfont stands bold, then follow along to the priory’s cellarium and coffee strong, view a Mappa Mottisfont defining the hours and lands from the priory’s 1340 flourishing to the black death and decline. Across the sward a stone arched summer house, fit for assignations, is dwarfed below majestic trees. Boxed trees with much clipping to define, formal edging, hedging and a lime walk recalling columned cloisters, formality with urns and mown lawn give way to rewilding tinged red and shades[…]

A hot sunny morning, you would think it was June as trees have fresh leaves and the fields are coloured in a patchwork of brown to acid yellow and every shade of green, after heavy rain a couple of weeks’ ago.  Row cover glints on a distant ridge, a reminder that the ground is still needing to warm up, and that’s not the only place that needs warming, the coach has hyper air conditioning.   To the south flat fields gather[…]

The last garden visit of 2024 and guided by volunteer Mike King through Dartington Hall’s long and tempestuous history. In 1326 the Martin family enclosed a 100-acre deer park, still home to fallow deer, then Dartington was granted to Sir John Holand in 1388 by Richard II, his half-brother. A year after Sir John built a hillside manor house he was executed for treason by Henry IV. History then repeated itself with the estate passing between grants from the crown[…]