The Newt Garden, Castle Cary, Somerset

 Tuesday 20 August 2024

After arriving to a huge car park, you traverse a wooden walkway up a hill through woodland to arrive at the Threshing Barn reception. This old barn has been beautifully renovated and repurposed, like many of the buildings on site.

Exploration of this 30-acre garden which is part of the extensive Hadspen estate originally owned by the Hobhouse family ensured a busy day for members.

It is still a project in the making with new additions planned. The conversion of the beautiful country house and outbuildings into a hotel, and an active farm plus the ornamental and fruit garden with grounds open to the public, is the initiative of entrepreneurs Karen Roos and Koos Bekker, owners of the Babylonstoren hotel and wine estate in South Africa. This addition, an English estate, is extensive in acreage and they have tried hard to focus on its Somerset heritage. They have a national collection of crab apples and apple trees numbering 500 varieties, approximately 3,500 trees in total.

Our first visit was to the Parabola Garden led by the head fruit gardener, Andy. This was formerly the walled kitchen garden; an egg-shaped space, now home to a collection of apples and stone fruits grown in the French style of trained cordons and walk over hedges. The owners and staff have a relaxed approach with visitors being allowed to pick an apple to taste and educate themselves. Asked what his favourite apple was among the 300 plus varieties grown in the parabola garden, Andy didn’t hesitate to recommend that used in Tarte Tatin the Reinette apple. The fruit trees here are trained and tied in with linen ties from old bed sheets which the hotel has a plenty supply of. These can allow the tree to move, rotting off after several years without damaging the branches. The hard landscaping in all areas is beautifully executed, local stone walls and pebble mosaic rondels.

We left the Parabola and headed down to the extensive vegetable garden via the impressive specially designed gourd tunnel. Again, the generous ethos of allowing guests to take away small surplus vegetables made for an informal relaxed atmosphere. The large, raised pond in the centre of this space is a haven for wildlife, it was introduced to replace the original natural pool pond that has now been relocated – along with its greater crested newt families – to the valley below.

From the vegetable garden we walked past the bathing pool and looked back towards the house.

Next we visited three colour-themed garden rooms, designed as homage to Canadian garden designer Nori Pope and his wife Sandra who had transformed the overgrown kitchen garden in the late 1980s when they rented the space from the Hobhouse family. In that time, they created an innovative giant colour wheel garden, a skilful cornucopia of successional planting that has influenced many garden designers and garden owners.  The red, white and blue rooms, whilst small, gave a nod to the history of the space.

From here we walked up to the cottage garden with the original gardener’s cottage now rethatched, this space paying tribute to Gertrude Jekyll and her influence in gardening.

After an excellent lunch members were free to explore the gardens. Some went off to the reimagined Roman Villa tour and some self-guiding in the four seasons garden about a 15-minute walk away across the estate. This area was newly opened in spring 2024 and holds much promise.

There was plenty more to see but it was time to depart, leaving much to discover another time.

Thank you to all at the Newt who made our day so enjoyable and to Faith Butt for suggesting the visit, assessing the site and liaising with staff, plus Charles and Jenny Smith in charge of arrivals and also for suggesting the location.

Sue Tymon

August 2024

Thanks to Jackie Hunt and Rebecca Burton for the photos