CALM & REPOSE

Burletts, a Grade II-listed rectory dating from the early 19th century and overlooking the rolling South Downs, is the West Sussex home of Humphrey Avon. With his late wife Magrit, he bought the property in the late 1970s, from Audrey Feest, who had lived there since just after the Second World War. For the most part, Burletts is a classic country garden, with borders, pasture, an orchard and a large walled garden that had previously supplied produce for the house.

When Humphrey and Magrit moved in, the garden was overgrown, having become too much for Audrey to manage, but they turned it into a space for their young family. Magrit in particular loved to garden, and her daughter, Vicky Cahill, recalls that she worked