PASTURES NEW

Known for commissioning Piet Oudolf's first UK garden, plantsman John Coke has moved on and created a brand-new, personal garden on the South Downs

- CIAR BYRNE

Where do you go next after owning one of the most notable gardens of recent decades? That was the question facing John Coke and his wife Suzanne. The couple are known for their garden Bury Court in Surrey, the first garden in the UK designed by Piet Oudolf New Perennial planting with a distinctly English twist.

At Bury Court, where a dynamically curving hedge of clipped yew provided a foil for naturalistic planting, the couple opened their garden to visitors by appointment, alongside running John’s nursery, Green Farm Plants, and Suzanne's wedding venue business. They also set up a small country house opera company to champion emerging talent.

Around five years ago, however, they decided they wanted to move somewhere more private, where the garden would be for their personal enjoyment alone. Both felt a magnetic draw to an area among the rolling fields of the South Downs in East Sussex - an area that they knew well thanks to their good friend Graham Gough, the opera singer turned nurseryman who used to run Marchant’s Hardy Plants (now sadly closed) in the village of Laughton.

As soon as they saw Narroways Barn, John and Suzanne knew it was the right place for them. It had been converted by the previous owners from an old agricultural barn and was known by the rather grander name of Beddingham Place, but they preferred the original moniker found on maps. Sited at the end of a winding country lane between Brighton and Eastbourne, the house looks across fields of rippling wheat up to the impressive escarpment of Firle Beacon.