Rosemoor Gardens near Tiverton in Devon

RHS Rosemoor, Great Torrington, North Devon Tel: 01805 624067

Set deep in the lovely North Devon countryside, RHS Garden Rosemoor has now come of age as a garden of national importance. Lady Anne Berry gifted Rosemoor to the RHS 11 years ago, since when the original eight acres have been greatly developed. To the huge range of plants collected by Lady Anne, the RHS has added features such as the Formal Garden, extensive herbaceous borders, herb and cottage gardens, a potager, the Foliage and Plantsman's Garden and extensive stream and lakeside plantings. Recent additions include the Mediterranean and semi-tropical plantings which have been thriving during the recent long hot summers and the newly planted Winter Garden. But what is perhaps the most popular feature of this delightful garden is the extensive rose garden, proving beyond doubt the lie that the West Country cannot produce beautiful roses.

A wide range of lectures, practical demonstrations and guided walks, led by RHS experts, take place at Rosemoor and at Cannington College, Bridgwater, Somerset throughout the year.

The story of the RHS Garden Rosemoor begins for us in 1959 when Lady Anne Berry (Lady Anne Palmer) caught measles from her children and, while recuperating in Spain, met the noted plantsman Collingwood Ingram. He invited her to visit his garden on her return to England and encouraged her to return to Rosemoor with a few of his plants to start a garden of her own.

Lady Anne's Garden, as the original garden of Rosemoor is now known, is a plantsman's garden and is of great horticultural and botanical interest. Inspired by the enthusiasm of plantsman Collingwood Ingram, the garden development continued with the planting of specimens collected by Lady Anne on her travels all over Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Japan, the USA and temperate South America. All the new introductions have been carefully labelled and their origin documented to provide the collection with its fascinating history.

In 1923 Lady Anne's parents bought the Rosemoor estate as a family fishing lodge to be used only through March to May. Originally part of the Rolle estate (a local Devon family), it was at that time owned by a Colonel Graham and rented by a Major Rustin. Both were fishermen and in those days the Torridge, which flows along one of the garden's boundaries, was a very good salmon river.

Following the death of her father in 1931 it became home to Lady Anne and her mother. At that time the garden was as Lady Anne describes it 'dull and labour-intensive, typically Victorian with a great use of annuals in beds round the house'.

In 1932 the Stone Garden was built from a patch of rough land which led from the lane bank to the lawn. Designed by Lady Anne's mother, it was built by their chauffeur-handyman and woodman who collected stone from the limekiln (which is situated below the garden's nursery site) for the wall; slate slabs for the paving were found elsewhere on the estate. The lions on the grinding stone and carved in the wall are believed to be a Rolle family emblem and these were collected by Lady Anne's mother from local antique shops. Teak pillars taken from the SS Revenge which was dismantled earlier this century at Bideford port originally supported the temple roof (now sadly dismantled as the supports had become unsafe).

In 1947 Lady Anne returned to live permanently at Rosemoor with her husband and young son and found a house in need of modernisation and farm buildings in serious need of repair. For a number of years they ran the estate as a dairy farm with a herd of up to 50 Ayrshire cows until the herd was sold and the farm reverted to pasture land rented out to local farmers for grazing.

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