Floral tribute to the saviour of our unique landscapes

Octavia Hill's legacy as one of the founders of the National Trust will be celebrated with the charity's first Chelsea Flower Show garden in ten years next week. JANE WARREN takes a sneak peak ahead of the official opening

- JANE WARREN

AS a little girl, Octavia Hill said what she wanted most was not a dolls' house but a field "so large that I could run in it forever".

Indeed, growing up with nine sisters in the countryside north of London had such a profound impact that it set her on a course destined to help secure the English landscape and its heritage in perpetuity for generations to come.

Along with Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley, Hill, then 57, founded the National Trust in 1895 to preserve the natural landscape while providing open spaces for the urban poor. Now her legacy as an advocate of public access to beauty is being commemorated with the Trust's first RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden for ten years.

As a social reformer, Hill believed in the value of what she imaginatively termed "outdoor sitting rooms" - places where everyone could go to find a strip of sky above their heads and nature all around.

She was also ardent about keeping ancient footpaths open- and opening up new ones.

In keeping with this, award-winning designer Ann-Marie Powell's Octavia Hill garden, sponsored by Blue Diamond garden centres with the Trust, features a series of beautiful open-air areas filled with flora and fauna that line sloping paths.

At its heart is a pond teeming with plants and insect life.

"My garden is designed to celebrate Octavia's contemporary nature," explains Ann-Marie. "We think footpaths are a Godgiven right but many of them only survived because of her.

Octavia came from a lot of money and was thrown into a completely different world, which gave her this unique perspective." The National Trust is not only about stately homes and gardens; more than 7,000 miles of paths provide free access to the countryside and the coast through its care.