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© Holland House 2011

garden

Holland house has three acres of beautiful and well maintained gardens

sloping down to the River Avon and with many quiet and private spots. There

is much of interest to be found in both garden and grounds, which are

naturally divided between more formal areas above the car park, and more

natural areas below towards the river.

Formal areas  of the garden include several well maintained lawns, one of which often used as a croquet lawn during the summer months, a rose garden found behind a yew hedge, and the sunken garden used to grow herbs which was reputedly designed by Edward Lutyens the famous Landscape designer.

Our garden is home to many interesting species of plants and animals, including pre-historic Ginkgo tree and Wollemi Pine, a mature Walnut tree, and Atlantic and Lebanon cedars. Down by the river you may spot Kingfishers, or the white-legged damselfly (platycnemis pennipes), you may hear, and if you’re lucky see, the Green or the Greater Spotted Woodpecker, and in the evening you might be lucky to hear a Tawny Owls.  

Professor of Botany Dr Paul Smith completed a natural history of our gardens, and commented that ‘such houses have a vital role to play in the future conservation of wildlife’.  At Holland House we take this responsibility seriously.

Kitchen Garden

We have our own large kitchen garden, situated behind the greenhouse, which you’re free to explore. We grow a good variety of vegetables and soft fruit, including fresh figs, raspberries and black currants. We use much of this to supply our kitchen, and occasionally have enough produce to sell.   We do not use pesticides or herbicides.

Honey Bees (apis mellifera)

Holland House began a colony of honey bees in early May 2009 and now has two hives. During 2010 we extracted over 90lbs of honey, some of which was sold in our shop.  If you’d like to know more about honey bees and beekeeping, our Warden would be delighted to help.