Bewitching, bucolic and brilliant Upton Wold, Gloucestershire

This magical Cotswolds garden has been thoughtfully created over almost half a century–with one eye always on the mesmerising view, says Tilly Ware

- Tilly Ware

THE Cotswolds are not short on famous gardens, nor on tourist coachloads. Upton Wold, only a few fields from Chipping Campden’s tea rooms, holds a rare, precious serenity amid the hordes. Sitting low and secretive in a valley fold, hugged by grassy slopes on three sides, the Jacobean Grade II*- listed manor has film-star good looks, with its symmetrical façade, mullioned windows, caramel stone, mossy slate roof.

When owners Ian and Caroline Bond arrived in 1973, it was less promising. The buildings form part of the Northwick estate and had been occupied by tenanted farmers. The approach was a muddy track and the garden an open field falling directly away from the house. Mrs Bond wrote to the Institute of Landscape Architects for help and received a recommendation for Brenda Colvin and Hal Moggridge. When Colvin arrived, Mrs Bond remembers, she ‘looked at the view, saying: “Hal, dear boy, if they agree to keep the sweep of the view, take the job. If they don’t, don’t.”’ The view stayed and Mr Moggridge did, too, helping develop the six-acre garden for more than 45 years.

As do its neighbours Kiftsgate and Hidcote, the garden at Upton Wold wraps around the manor in a series of rooms, divided by formal hedging and strong axis paths. Using stone quarried on the estate, the Bonds built boundary walls and an east-facing terrace, levelling the ground and anchoring the house. From this platform, three wide stone steps drop down to two tiered lawns, flanked on either side by vast, immaculately clipped yew hedges and ending with a ha-ha.

Preceding pages: Hundreds of Camassia leichtlinii are added to the orchard each year. Beyond the field gate lies a wildflower meadow.