Happy 200th birthday to a legendary hotel garden

(ANDREW CROWLEY)

At Endsleigh, where the garden relates so strongly to the house, Olga is in her element: she has designed the interior and implemented various tweaks to the exterior. The inside and out work in harmony and reinforce the picturesque style of the architecture as designed by Sir Jeffry Wyatville.

The absence of change to the gardens from the original design is emphasised by leafing through Reptons Red Book for Endsleigh. You can see his watercolours of the original landscape with the overlays of his proposals which look remarkably true to todays views.

Repton did much work for the Duke of Bedford, especially at Woburn, and Endsleigh (a glorified holiday cottage) was maintained, but the design was left pretty much untouched. It stayed with the family until 1955 when it was taken over by relatives of the late dukes, including sons and grandsons. They together formed the Fishing Friends and shared the property.

The garden became rather neglected, but the hurricane of 1987 brought massive tree loss. This event, coupled with a realisation of the importance of the landscape, galvanised the fishing club into action. Members wives joined their husbands and instead of fishing, they were out weeding and restoring.

Olga Polizzi and her daughters bought Endsleigh eight years ago. The head gardener, Simon Wood, had been working there for 14 years and is now in day-to-day charge of the restoration. About half of the 60-acres of woodland has become walkable and are full of stunning specimens acers, cherries, cedars and more including fine champion trees. His programme includes restoring paths and removing much of the self-sown ash and sycamore that has taken over.

Simons favourite part is the Dairy Dell, a steep-sided valley of more than 40 acres, exposed bedrock and many fine trees. There is a stream running through it. The tiny model dairy was built for Georgiana a down-to-earth duchess who married the sixth duke in 1803 who liked to milk the cows. In 1910, more exotic trees were planted here, especially maples and cherries, as a result of the Duke of Bedford funding plant expeditions to Japan.

The garden has other striking areas, such as the hexagonal Shell House and Grotto , which was designed as a summer house for the display of geological specimens. The rockery and grotto have a central pool and a fountain, many beautiful pebbled paths and are connected to the dell by a serpentine flight of stone steps. Another extraordinary feature is a small terrace constructed from sheeps knuckles. These are intricately laid to form hard paving.Presumably, the duke had a thrifty side and lots of sheep. Now, using like-for-like replacements is illegal, so Olga has to substitute special plastic alternatives.

Elsewhere, a few minor alterations have been made to enhance the gardens for guests. Another adjacent terrace was all grass, but to cope with garden furniture it has been surfaced with crushed slate Olgas daughter Alexs idea, which fits in well.

Lawns have been reseeded and the 100m-long herbaceous border (perhaps the longest uninterrupted herbaceous border in the country ) that Repton designed has been renovated. When it was a holiday cottage for the Bedfords, a border full of summer flowering show-offs, such as delphiniums, aconitums and poppies, was perfect, but now other plants, such as hellebores and euphorbias, have been added to increase the year-round appeal. Historic watercolours of their former incarnation have been studied to retain the original feel, though.

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Happy 200th birthday to a legendary hotel garden