This intriguing garden has been shaped by three generations of the Heathcoat Amory family, and like a museum piece, the main parts of the garden remain very much as its original creator intended. Now owned by Ed Heathcoat Amory and his wife Alice Thomson, the property was originally given as a wedding present to Ed’s great grandparents, Ludovic and May in 1911, and the garden became May’s lifelong obsession. In 1966 Chevithorne passed to Ed’s father Michael, who established a world-renowned collection of oaks, and it is now Ed and Alice’s turn to take over the collection and develop the garden.

As soon as May and Ludovic moved in, they began to make a garden here, but tragically Ludovic was killed in World War I and May was left to bring up her three young boys alone. Then, almost unimaginably, all three of her sons lost their lives in World War II. May channelled her grief into her beloved garden, carving the south-facing slope into a series of walled terraces and diverting the mill leat that runs above the valley into little streams that run through the delightful woodland garden. Before I visited I read an old Country Life article about the garden that had been written by Lanning Roper in 1960. His words could be describing it today, so little has it changed: ‘The stone work of the steps, paths, walls and garden house on the top terrace are so overgrown with erigerons, campanulas, thymes, and endless other rock plants that all rigidity has been lost and there is a mellow softness, not only of the structural lines but of the stone itself, with its coating of moss and lichens…. Over the years plants have been allowed to seed and spread until the stone paths are almost lost under a carpet of bloom.’ The garden feels just on the edge of unbridled wildness, which gives it an incredible patina and a very special atmosphere. It sits comfortably in its rural Devon setting.

Michael’s oak collection was started in 1984 and now contains around 440 species and varieties, including some very rare ones, planted in the woodland garden as well as in a field that over years will one day become magnificent oak wood. Ed and Alice are determined to build the collection and are sensitively developing the garden, planning new routes to open up views and link the garden to the arboretum. Ed says: ‘We have two inheritances, one from my great grandmother and the other from my father and the next stage is to integrate those two visions’.

Chevithorne is open for the NGS on certain days this spring and summer. Check their website for details. Link to a PDF of the House & Garden article here.