"A beautiful cup in a saucer to match"
This is how Kipling described his house and garden. At this time of year you can get a real feel for the structure of Rudyard Kipling's garden; the soft sandstone house sits beautifully within the garden and the valley beyond, ever present and providing a backdrop to the garden he created for his children to play in and his family and friends to enjoy, just as we want you to enjoy it today.
There's nothing too ostentatious here, and that's how Kipling wanted it, the layout of the paths and formal hedges surrounding and dividing the garden lead you gently past flowering shrubs and trees such as Chaenomeles speciosa and Magnolia x vietchii and the spring borders which lead you towards the wild garden with the River Dudwell running through it.
In the springtime the borders are a riot of colour with Pulmonaria rubra, Brunnera macrophylla, primroses and hellebores mingling with the bright blue flowers of Scilla siberica and the most unusual green and black flower of the Widow Iris, Hermodactyllus tuberosus.
You can also admire the skeletal form of the pleached lime hedges before the leaves start growing. But it's beyond this, in the wild garden that you will be truly captivated.