Overall Winner & Regional Winner: South West
Credit: NGS
Fronted by a flight of yew topiary birds, the dovecote at Rockcliffe is the garden’s most recognisable feature. This area was crying out for a beautiful focal point and, after much research, owners Emma and Simon Keswick settled on a dovecote, taking inspiration from the dovecote at Rousham, weathervanes at Eton College Chapel, the windows of the Gothic Cottage at Stourhead and stonework from the Old Toll House in Stow-on-the-Wold. In summer, the dovecote appears to float on a cloud of ox-eye daisies, while the doves eye up brassicas in the kitchen garden at the foot of the slope.
This is just one example of the considered perfection visitors can find at Rockcliffe, Emma and Simon’s home since the 1980s. When they arrived there wasn’t much beyond the house itself and some surrounding fields. Emma began by marking out the garden, pacing eastwards until the proportions felt right. A wide lawn now leads towards a ha-ha built to keep out the sheep and is flanked by huge beech obelisks in not quite parallel lines that give the impression that the vista is even longer. “It’s an idea I saw at the Palazzo Corsini in Florence, where they achieve the same effect using statues,” Emma explains. The couple find inspiration from a multitude of places: “The ideas have to come from somewhere!” adds Emma.
This is a garden that has been made slowly and with care over the past four decades, giving it an atmosphere of comfortable familiarity that’s tangible to its visitors. Those visitors have voted it not only the regional winner of the South West category but also our overall champion – congratulations to the Nation’s Favourite Garden! rockcliffegarden.co.uk
Regional Winner: South
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