A MATURE espalier pear tree stretches to the eaves of a 17th-century stone dairy: it is the kind of hopeful beacon one dreams of finding when hunting for a family house with the potential to create a wonderful garden. Ten years ago, when landscape designer Alasdair Cameron and his wife, Tor, first viewed the pretty Georgian farmhouse in the gentle east Devon countryside, everything about the house’s exterior was practical, but felt very bare. ‘There was a massive modern barn at the front, a tarmac drive, everything was breeze-blocked and cold.’ Before he left, the farmer who had lived at the farm for more than 60 years told them that they would find cobbles hidden beneath the concrete in the farm courtyard. Sure enough, ‘as soon as we removed the concrete, it was incredible: the place began to breathe’.
Mr Cameron has