Above our heads is a gorgeous vaulted ceiling and there’s a large faded tapestry hanging on a wall. A suit of polished steel armour stands in one of the bay windows. Double doorslead off to the left and right, where a couple of people are loitering, but my attention is drawn by what’s beyond the big arched doors straight ahead.
We step outside into a courtyard garden with low hedges and flower beds bursting with miniature pink roses, set around a beautiful central fountain. On the left is what looks like a very old section of the house. It has a pitched roof and is part timber-framed and part red brick, with lead-panelled lattices on the windows holding tiny glass panes.
‘There used to be two other wings just like that one,’ Evan says, pointing at the old section.
‘Tudor?’ I ask.
‘Yep, built not long after the gatehouse. The Great Hall is Regency.’ He nods to our right at a second, more modern but still very old wing made of cream stone with tall windows and glass doors that open directly onto the garden. Looking through a window, I can see a bunch of round tables dressed with white tablecloths. ‘This courtyard used to be fully enclosed,’ Evan says. ‘But the north and east wings burned down in the early nineteenth century. Whoever was custodian of the place at the time decided not to rebuild the north wing, and why would you?’
He nods ahead at the view. It’s breathtaking, a gently undulating hill that dips and then rises into woodland in the distance.
There’s a clanking sound to my right and a large window in the Regency wing flies open. An attractive older woman with windswept chin-length blonde hair leans out.
‘Evan, darling, can we borrow you a minute?’ she calls ina cut-glass accent. ‘We need a nice big pair of strong male hands.’
‘Sure, Mrs B,’ Evan replies amiably, turning to me and saying: ‘If you want to head that way and hang a right, you’ll come to the rose gardens and a view of the orangery. I’ll see you there in a minute?’
‘Okay.’
‘Oh, is that Eleanor Knapley?’ the woman calls out eagerly as I begin to walk away.
‘Fresh off the train,’ Evan replies.
I glance over my shoulder to see him genially beckoning me back.
‘It’s wonderful to meet you,’ she gushes. ‘And wemusthave a proper chat soon, but right now I’ve a small emergency with a fridge-freezer. Come, come!’ she urges Evan.
He gives me an amused look as he sets off towards a pair of double doors further along the building.
I come out of the courtyard garden onto a wide gravel path that’s lined by towering topiary columns. To the left, a couple of hundred metres away, is an old church sitting in a field of long grass accessed by a winding path. My eyes sweep right over the far sunlit trees climbing the hill in the distance and pause on a stretch of water at the edge of the woods. The estate certainly seems vast. Luckily we’re only responsible for the formal gardens.
A neatly mown lawn slopes down from this top terrace to a lower level where a young family is playing with oversized Jenga blocks. As I wander right, along the path, I notice giant chess pieces and other garden games too, and there are acouple of people lying on the steep slope, soaking up the last of the day’s sunshine. There are a few other visitors about and it occurs to me that this might be my one and only chance to enjoy the gardens just like them – from tomorrow, I’ll be an employee here, wearing a gardener’s uniform.
Today, I’m dressed in jeans and a lightweight jumper, with my long hair piled up on my head in a messy bun. I breathe in deeply, my gaze roaming over the cottage garden plants in the beds by the house: spicy orange roses climbing the old stone walls, clusters of blowsy pink peonies and tall vibrant purple irises swaying in the late-spring breeze. The perfume from the rose gardens up ahead hits my nose.
Everyone who heard I was moving to Wales warned me to:
‘Pack your wet-weather gear!’
‘Don’t forget your raincoat!’
‘Make sure you’ve got a good umbrella!’
Or some variation on the same theme.
Even Evan told me to ‘Say goodbye to sunshine!’
But according to the weather forecast, it’s supposed to be sunny all week. It’s only the middle of May – I can’t believe my luck.
I head in the direction of the formal rose garden, which is laid out in a traditional design around a central grey stone fountain, and then I take a left past a tall hedge. The orangery comes into view at the end of a long sloping lawn and it’s stunning: Georgian, I assume, with tall double doors and a pitched glass roof that I can just make out from this higher perspective. At the bottom of the hill behind the orangery isa glittering lake – the stretch of water I saw from the house – and beyond it, the woods climb back uphill in the distance.
My attention is caught by a vibrant block of red in the wide garden beds butting up against the lawn that leads down to the orangery. My breath catches: lupins. Masses of them. And not just in red, but all colours.
My heart lifts as I walk down a few steps and come to a stop, drinking in the sight. It’s like Nan’s rainbow garden scaled up to the power of fifty, beginning with reds and oranges, morphing into pinks and purples, and ending with blues, yellows and whites.
Nan would have given her right arm to come and see me working in a garden like this.
For a moment, I imagine her standing there beside me, her face lit up with wonder and pride. Tears prick my eyes at the thought.
