The blossoming of Kiftsgate

Kiftsgate Court Gardens, in the North Cotswolds, are famous for their rampant rose – the largest in England. But there’s so much more to these horticultural masterpieces, created by three generations of women, as Katie Jarvis discovered. She spoke to Anne Chambers, current owner guardian; and to Vanessa Berridge, author of a book marking the gardens’ centenary

- Katie Jarvis

Spring [2004]: It had been a horrible day when I left London, but it bucked up just as I arrived in Gloucestershire. I drove along the drive, the steep banks dropping away; and the slopes were covered with bluebells. It was a heartstopping introduction to this garden that was going to play such a big part in my life, Vanessa Berridge

The year is 1938; the month is May; and a mild spring is pouring warm sunshine onto a grateful Earth one minute, before sprinkling it with showers the next. At their castle in Kent, Vita Sackville

West and Harold Nicolson are opening glorious Sissinghurst gardens to the paying public (nicknamed ‘the shillingses’ in satirical honour of their entrance fees) for the first time.

Meanwhile, at Kiftsgate Court in the Cotswolds, another gardener is preparing to let visitors into her private world, for the National Garden Scheme.

When Heather Muir and husband Major John Buchanan Muir bought Kiftsgate Court in 1919, Jack (as he was known) considered the imposing Victorian house an architectural nightmare: a strange mix of 19th century casement windows, offset by an 18thcentury façade that had been transported, stone by stone, on a specially built light-railway from old Mickleton Manor in the valley below. (Quite a feat, even for ingenious Victorians.)

Despite this architectural incongruity, there were other attractions. Jack fell for Kiftsgate’s imposingly elevated site on top of Glyde Hill, high above Mickleton village; Heather, for the land around it. She might lack formal training, but she felt sure she could make something of this near-virgin garden plot. And there was another bonus: move here and their next-door neighbour (a mere halfmile away) would be none other than Lawrence Johnston of Hidcote Manor Gardens-fame.

As Vanessa Berridge writes in her award-winning book