A Garden With No End

Strong design underpins a garden of surprises.

- Mandy Bradshaw

It’s curious how design can alter our perceptions of a garden. Mantoft may be only an acre but it feels much larger thanks to its layout. Even after two visits, I found myself getting lost and unsure of the exact position of different features.

It’s a quality that Tina Tupper has worked hard to achieve, putting in tall hedges to divide the space and ensuring there’s always a choice of routes to take.

“I don’t like anywhere that comes to an end, if you can possibly continue it in some way,” she explains.

What is surprising is that a garden with many clever design features is not the result of professional help or even forward planning. Rather it is something that has evolved piecemeal.

“It’s not been drawn on a piece of paper, nothing like that. You do one thing and ideas suggest themselves to you. I think things flow on.”

When Tina and her husband, Michael, bought Mantoft in Eckington, 38 years ago, creating a garden was the last thing on her mind. The house was derelict and she had never been interested in gardening.

That all changed 10 years after they moved in when she saw a picture of Sir Roy Strong’s garden, The Laskett.

“I looked at it and thought ‘I don’t have a garden and I want one’,” she recalls. “I thought ‘I could do that.’ I believe if you tell yourself you can do something, you can.”

That she has succeeded is clear from the outset. Today the house, which dates back to medieval times, is framed by carefully clipped topiary while a formal pond fills what was once a tractor parking space.