Marks of distinction

The garden at Tichborne House, Tichborne, Hampshire The home of Mrs Anthony Loudon | Contemporary hedging and naturalistic planting echo the ancient field patterns and hedgerows in the brilliant remaking of this historic garden, says Tiffany Daneff

- Tiffany Daneff

HISTORY runs through Tichborne like the clear waters of the River Itchen, from which it takes its name in origins thought to date back to Saxon times. The single row of halftimbered cottages in the hamlet speak of its rich past, as does the low-lying watermeadow set among fields with names such as The Crawls, Hart Godwins and Hassocks Copse. It is only as you make the final approach to Tichborne Park that the first signs of the garden appear. Running alongside the singletrack lane, arranged on a confident diagonal —a clear sign of the gardener’s intent—are neat green mounds of hebe and yellow phlomis.

Soon, the Grade II-listed house, built in 1803–05 with a handsome Doric portico, comes into view. It’s here that the famous Tichborne Dole is still distributed in a ceremony dating back centuries (see box). Looking out from the portico, its several stone urns filled with large-leaved echeveria, the owner, Catherine Loudon, describes how, over the winter of 2021/22, she oversaw the removal of 41 conifers from the woods, which now provide a much more fitting backdrop to the view.

Mrs Loudon, who was born in New Zealand, first came to Tichborne with her future husband, Anthony, in 1995. They were married in 1999 and, when they were living in London, would come down at the weekends. She began to do a little gardening then, but it wasn’t until they eventually moved here full time in 2012 that work on the garden really started.