Green Credentials

In July 2018, as part of the garden’s 125th anniversary celebrations, Borde Hill in West Sussex officially unveiled an exciting new development – a complete transformation of the Round Dell, a former quarry that was once used to excavate stone to build the walls around the Elizabethan manor house.

The task was undertaken by young, award-winning garden designer Sophie Walker and conceived as a response to the garden’s rich horticultural history. Like many similar country estates here on the Sussex High Weald, Borde Hill Garden was born out of a late Victorian zeal for collecting plants from the furthest outposts of the British Empire. Colonel Stephenson Robert Clarke – a keen naturalist and collector – purchased the 200-acre estate in 1893 and set about commissioning professional plant