A timeless tranquility

With its link to the Gunpowder Plot, ancient topiary and croquet connection, there’s a tremendous sense of history in the garden of Chastleton House. Created by generations of the same family over four centuries, it has an air of timelessness and tranquillity that is at odds with much of modern life.

Indeed, tucked away on the border of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire and owned by a family of limited means, radical change and innovation have largely passed Chastleton by.

The house, which celebrates its 400th anniversary next year, was started in 1607 by Walter Jones, who bought the land from Robert Catesby, one of Guy Fawkes’ fellow conspirators. Walter Jones pulled down the medieval manor house and built Chastleton in its place. This was the high point for a family that never really recovered from supporting the Royalists in the Civil War.

When the house and garden near Moreton-in-Marsh were acquired by the National Trust in 1991, both were desperately in need of repair and restoration. The garden was overgrown and unkempt, the lawns had all but disappeared and the hedges were badly out of shape.
“It wanted a lot doing to it,” recalls head gardener Adrian Miles. “It was completely overgrown.”

Over the years, he has gradually retamed the garden, reshaping hedges, clearing brambles and self-sown trees and replanting the herbaceous borders.

Read more about Chastleton House and see our wonderful pictures on December's issue of Cotswold Life.

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