Chapter 1 - Beginnings

It all began about twenty years ago, I suppose, the beginning of a dream which has now been a reality for half of that time.  All those years ago, my mother mentioned that she was thinking of selling her terraced garage to the family next door.  But this was no ordinary garage, it was a very old, possibly 17th century, one-up, one-down cottage next door but one to where I had been, not exactly born, as that had been in a nursing home, but brought up and lived until I married in 1965.

No. 4 Lower Sprotborough had been condemned in the mid 1950s as unfit for human habitation and the man living there had been moved into more suitable accommodation following the building of council houses which had taken place following WW2. 

As a result of my objection to its sale, I later discovered that in April 1996 my mother had decided to gift it to me and, as she lived longer than the required seven years, it duly came into my ownership after that time.  But she wasn't quite ready to give it up at that time and, as it happens, we didn't have the money needed to make it habitable either, so she continued to park her car in it until sometime during 1998, at the age of 84 and following operations on her hands for carpal tunnel syndrome, it was decided that perhaps she should give up driving.  And so, in March 1999, plans were drawn and the renovation began. 

Two or three eventful years later, which may in time be recounted elsewhere, on the 6th of December 2002 to be exact, our furniture arrived from store, we moved in and, before too long, we began to think about the garden.

The front of the cottage is paved, with only a very small patch of soil remaining under the front window and two small diamond-shaped beds over which the car can be parked when necessary.  The main garden, then, is at the back, measuring approximately 35' wide by 50' long.  At that stage, it couldn't be called a garden, as during the renovation of the cottage, it had been covered by piles of old bricks, stone and miscellaneous junk surrounded by lots of increasingly pot-bound flowers and shrubs that we had bought, there being no visible soil in which to plant them.  With the cottage renovation complete, what materials were still scattered around would be used to create the hard landscaping, and so we began to consider the design.

March 2004

Mick, my husband, had completed a Diploma in Horticulture following his redundancy from British Gas in 1995 and so was well able to take this on, but by this time we were working as camp-site managers in Lincolnshire during the Summer season and so had to do as much as we could before starting work at the end of March.  I had my own ideas about how I would like it, of course, but compromise was necessary if we were to get anywhere and we eventually came to a tentative agreement. 

As will be understood by the measurement given, the garden is an oblong shape, bounded on the right-hand side by a stone wall.  Across the top was a small building, divided into two, adjacent to the gable end of a stone building which belongs to the pub next door and the left hand side was edged by an earthen path leading to the orchard of our next-door neighbour.   The fourth side overlooked, as it still does, a drop of about eight feet into our back yard.  As the garden is reached by two sets of steps, it could be described as a giant raised bed and, although it is on the north side of the cottage, because it is raised up, the sun, when it cares to, shines on some part of it most of the day. 

The building described above, which had previously served the purpose of toilet and shed, had been in a state of terminal decay for some years so that it was now falling down with a tree growing in one side of it; we decided it all had to be removed.  It would become the site of our 10' x 8' greenhouse, which had been Mick's 25 year service award from work, and a new shed, measuring 6' x 4', which, to the chagrin of Mick and much frustration ever since, was destined to hold the contents of the garage of our previous detached house which measured approximately 10' x 12'; the search for the simplest tool or device eliciting a loud clatter and a stream of barely contained abuse as said item would fall to the floor amidst a multitude of other implements, necessitating the removal of everything in sight to find it again.

From 1956, when my mother purchased the cottage, she had gardened it in a way that kept it tidy, with a few shrubs, perennial borders and a lawn.  It had provided a drying space for her washing and each Spring allowed free rein to many primroses and grape hyacinths which covered the large lawned area and the path border respectively.  After she remarried on Boxing Day 1962, my step-father, Norman, planted vegetables: most successfully, runner beans which covered his wigwam frame in profusion each year, encouraged by the prior preparation they received in the form of manure from our bucket toilet which sometime became full before the lorry arrived to empty it.  Following his death, my mother returned to her earlier system, already having enough to cope with in the garden at her own home and the primroses and grape hyacinths continued to increase until they were covered over by our recycled 'junk'.  This then was our inheritance and we set about our dig and design with enthusiasm.

The greenhouse and shed were separated from the rest of the garden with access being from the top of the path.  Parallel to these structures, Mick built a stone wall, backed by a fence, on which to store wood for the fire and this was topped by a tiled roof, matching the roof of the cottage.  A fence at right angles towards the gable end completed this space.   The earthen path stretching the length of the garden was also separated by a fence, an archway leading onto the garden from the top of the steps, creating an enclosure which is both private and sheltered. 

One of our firm decisions was that we knew we didn't want a lawn, but we did want a rockery so, having dug the whole of the ground three times over and denuded it of as many weeds as we could find, we utilised some of the lumps of limestone still laying around, to build one on the edge overlooking the yard.  Fortunately, though time consuming, the digging wasn't too arduous as, with the addition of organic matter over many years, the natural texture of the soil makes quite a good growing medium. Bearing in mind that the underlying stratum is limestone, we have found that it is possible to grow a vast range of perennial plants, though acid soil lovers are not so happy unless in pots.  The rockery was designed to cover an area of about 4' wide by 12' long, with a herb garden at the end near the steps and a planting area around two sides of the patio which we sited in the other corner.  This corner actually overlooks our neighbour's back yard so needed the shelter of the Buddleia which remained as a legacy from the garden's earlier incarnation. 

 We also decided we would like a summerhouse and a water feature, so the top corners became homes for these.  The water feature, raised up and fronted by a stone wall, with a ledge on top which can be used as a seat, backs onto the wood store and the summerhouse is such that its two back walls fit into the right-angled corner on the right.  To facilitate access to these, we decided that the path should continue in a rectilinear route from the top of the steps, through the arch, along the front of the rockery to the patio, and then from the patio to the summerhouse where it again turns left towards the water feature.  This had the advantage of creating a flower bed on the right and another on the top border, leaving a large area in the middle.  There are, however, disadvantages to this design which have become more apparent has time has gone on and plants have grown, in that it is constantly necessary to retrace one's steps to return to the archway and it can be very difficult to gain access to any plants in the large bed which need attention.  But these weren't so apparent at the time and, having made the decision, we resolved to go ahead with this plan. The good thing about gardens, however, is that nothing has to remain static and ten years on we have already had to consider as well as implement other more unexpected changes.

But between March 2004 and Summer 2005 when the first plantings were becoming established, we were very pleased with our new garden and  looked forward to viewing and enjoying the fruits of our labour from the comfort of a deckchair.

Summer 2005