Benvarden has been the Montgomery family's home since 1798, when banker Hugh Montgomery bought the estate on his return from Virginia. The two-acre walled garden appears on a map dated 1788 and has been cultivated continuously since, its brick-faced bawn wall raised to sixteen feet by the Montgomerys as they laid out herbaceous borders, a rose garden and a parterre. Paths run past glasshouse sites still used ornamentally, and a Victorian cast-iron bridge crosses the River Bush at the edge of the grounds. The Stableyard Tearoom, converted from the estate's former stables around a cobbled yard entered through an arched cupola, serves scones, cakes and pastries alongside tea and coffee. The garden and river walks are open daily; the tearoom operates Friday to Sunday and bank holiday Mondays through the summer season.
Surveyed