Tim Smit and John Willis — a descendant of the Tremaynes, whose seat this was — found the gardens under bramble in 1990; John Nelson began the clearance, The Times called what followed 'the garden restoration of the century', and the gates opened at Easter 1992. Two hundred acres now run from the working Productive Gardens through the Pleasure Grounds to the subtropical Jungle, with sixty acres of woodland where Sue and Pete Hill's Mud Maid and Giant's Head sleep in the leaf litter. It is privately owned and leased from the Tremayne estate — not the National Trust, not English Heritage, not the RHS, as the operator takes care to say — and holds a national collection of pre-1920 camellias and rhododendrons, with British Travel Awards for best UK leisure attraction in 2016 and 2017 behind it.
Surveyed