Walled Garden Baumber
Walled Garden Baumber is an innovative and exciting 4 acre walled garden, full of hidden surprises and vastly different from the traditional kitchen garden that it once was. It is owned by designer and photographer Sonia and David Elton.
The Elton's took on the project in 2006 when the house and gardens were derelict.
In 2016 the family decided to open the gates to the public on Friday afternoons to see if anyone wanted to come and have a look. They were overwhelmed by the amount of visitors and the positive comments that were made. By May 2017 the former potting shed had become a lovely tea room, a plant sales area was developed and a series of courses and events were added to the calendar.
Now in it's 8th year of being open the garden is open all year round for it's visitor to enjoy.
About us
History
The Walled Garden Baumber is a nineteenth-century walled garden that once belonged to the former Stourton Hall. It is a rare example of a double walled garden and covers just under four acres.
We have next to no surviving descriptions of the grounds, gardens or the walled kitchen garden. We do know however, that the walls were built between 1817 and 1826. The evidence for this is two carved bricks in the outer wall which forms part of the boundary wall of the old formal gardens.
However, the British Census for the village of Baumber in 1881, shows that six men were employed as gardeners. Working on the assumption that they were all employed at Stourton Hall and that two to three gardeners were required per acre, at just under four acres, the Walled Garden appears to have been adequately staffed at that time.
Information from the estate sales catalogue for 1952 gives us a tantalising glimpse of what survived in the Walled Garden, but the information is limited: On the west of the residence and screened in the woodland is the double-walled kitchen garden and cottage the greenhouses comprised a single-span house, a one and three-quarter span cucumber house in three divisions and two other single-span houses. The buildings included a tool, seed and fertiliser sheds, two-bay barrow shed, potting shed, pot store, three-bay barrow shed and store and two boiler houses. The garden contains an abundance of wall-trained, espalier, standard and bush hard fruit trees and a soft fruit garden.
