Gardens to visit in spring and summer – Forde Abbey

When you visit an old monastic site, you have the feeling that you’ve stepped back into the Dark Ages. Nowhere is this more true than of Forde Abbey, even though the traces of their gardens have vanished almost entirely. The only monastic structure that remains today is the Great Pond at the top of the garden which now brings water into the garden - originally its purpose was to power a grain mill on the site of the present day forge. The dissolution of the Abbeys by Henry VIII destroyed Forde Abbey, but the site itself was not entirely lost.

Sir Francis Gwyn created the beginnings of the current garden in the eighteenth century. Gwyn used the water to create the three lower ponds and the cascades that can be viewed from the centre of the Border. He also planted the great yews as part of his design, and probably the largest lime trees. It was also during this period that the lawns were laid out and the walls built.

However, the estate was neglected again when Gwyn died, and both garden and house where in a terrible state when Jane Evans purchased them in 1863. The Evans family created a typical Victorian garden on the site, beginning with a kitchen garden that produced an amazing range of fruit and vegetables at all times of the year, and facing the road, shrubberies of yew, bamboo and rhododendrons. Like many Victorians, they banished flowers to the kitchen garden where they were grown for cutting to display in the house.

For the past hundred years, the Roper family have been developing the gardens and their newest addition, and well worth a spring or summer visit, is the Centenary Fountain which was installed in 2005. With a maximum height of one hundred and sixty feet it is the highest powered fountain in England and really does impress the viewer.

Forde Abbey photograph by Pengannel, used under a creative commons attribution licence

 

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