To celebrate National Garden Week we are sharing some photos of the gardens of Chilworth Manor as featured in the latest copy of The English Garden Magazine. Thank you to Clive Nichols for his stunning photos and the nice words by Annette Warren who described the garden as follows ...
"The house and gardens sit snugly in a natural bowl against the wooded backdrop of St Martha’s Hill. Alpacas graze contentedly in the adjacent field beside a productive vineyard, planted relatively recently in 2013.
Recorded as a monastery in the Domesday book, the Manor was once home to Augustinian monks who kept carp in stew ponds that still exist to this day and have now been repurposed as ornamental Japanese pools. The monastery was mostly destroyed by Henry VIII during the reformation, gradually evolving into the manor house as it stands today. The majority of the additions to the older part of the house were made in the early 1700s by Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who added an a-symmetrical wing and is credited with creating the theatre-like terraced walled garden, still referred to today as ‘The Duchess’s Garden’."
