WINTER'S soft embrace

A touch of frost accentuates the striking structure and form of the garden at Wollerton Old Hall in Shropshire

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A touch of frost accentuates the striking structure and form of the garden at Wollerton Old Hall in Shropshire Homemade compost helps with mulching the beds.

Special features Individual garden ‘rooms’ laid out in the Arts and Crafts style.

Garden designer Owners Lesley and John Jenkins.

THE HEAVILY beamed 16th-century Wollerton Old Hall has almost certainly been home to some form of garden for around 500 years. Today, its three acres unfold as 16 distinct garden 'rooms', each with its own unique character, shape and style, which in winter can be seen in their barest form. When Lesley and John Jenkins moved to Wollerton Old Hall in 1983, Lesley was actually returning to her childhood home. She had taken a detour one day past the house, only to discover it was for sale and so without hesitation, the couple made an offer. 'I was very excited and happy seeing my old home again, it brought back so many childhood memories. However, on exploring further I found the garden of my memory was no more!'

After two years of house renovations, the couple turned their attention to the garden: a field mainly used as a cricket pitch by their sons. Armed with a pot of paint, Lesley began marking out the first lines of what would become one of the most celebrated gardens in the country. 'We realised early on that the age of the house required a formal structure eliminating curves in the design. Once we had decided the positions of the straight-line vistas, it was time to plant hedges and build walls. Slowly the ethos came into being and led to separate “rooms”.