In fact, this area was made many years before Mel Tanner took on the running of the plant fairs 11 years ago. The 1½ acre of garden has been created over time, with new areas added gradually since Mel and her husband, Nicholas, moved here in 1988.
At first, this was a family garden, with lawns for go-carting and cricket, as well as a swimming pool. The early-18th-century building, as its name suggests, was originally the coach house and stables for Ampney Park, next door, the chimneys of which can just be seen above the trees when one stands in the middle of the lawn. A Kip engraving of 1730 shows the coach house tucked in between the big house and the church. Both now provide a helpful backdrop of mature trees that anchor the garden in the landscape.
When the Tanners first moved in, they focused their attention on the area around the newly repurposed buildings, laying a generous stone-flagged terrace outside the kitchen. This leads around the back of the house to an S-shaped path they made through a small woodland, which is planted for spring and autumn with bulbs and shrubs.
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