The Makings of a MASTERPIECE
Kathy and Simon Brown have been opening their garden at The Manor House in Stevington for the National Garden Scheme for more than 20 years. It’s an operation that’s evolved during that time into a polished performance, just like the garden itself. The couple moved to their new home in 1988 and started work on the garden a few years later, yet on their first open day in 1996, “there wasn’t an awful lot to see,” Kathy confesses.
Her first project was establishing a cottage garden to the north of the house, while Simon was busy envisaging an ambitious formal garden on its east side, inspired by holidays spent visiting formal gardens like Vaux-le-Vicomte in France. When Melissa, an old donkey they’d inherited with the house, died in the early ’90s, the couple were able to incorporate her paddock into the garden and the formal garden began to
