The Lower Garden

Built on a considerable slope the Lower Garden has been terraced and divided into two ‘lawns’: the upper one has the very elegant Chinese sandstone ball in the centre, an ancient damson tree for lunchtime shade and a youthful walnut tree sporting, last year, six nuts. The lower ‘lawn’ is the pétanque terrain (boule being a delightful if occasional way to end a day’s weeding), bordered to the north by a low flint wall, four step-over pears, newly planted lavenders (alternately Folgate and Blue Ice), and to the south by the beech hedge, two Cretan pots and the teak seat (just right for morning coffee but just wrong for hearing the punchline of passing pedestrian’s jokes).