Country Life

Bewitching, bucolic and brilliant

THE Cotswolds are not short on famous gardens, nor on tourist coachloads. Upton Wold, only a few fields from Chipping Camp-den’s tea rooms, holds a rare, precious serenity amid the hordes. Sitting low and secretive in a valley fold, hugged by grassy slopes on three sides, the Jacobean Grade II*- listed manor has film-star good looks, with its symmetrical façade, mullioned windows, caramel stone, mossy slate roof.

When owners Ian and Caroline Bond arrived in 1973, it was less promising. The buildings form part of the Northwick estate and had been occupied by tenanted farmers. The approach was a muddy track and the garden an open field falling directly away from the house. Mrs Bond wrote to the Institute of Landscape Architects for help and received a recommendation for Brenda Colvin and Hal Moggridge. When

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