Thirty-eight years on, the cottage is engulfed by the garden: a dream world of topiary forms
From the south end of Benenden village green in Kent, beside St George’s Church, a track leads to the horticultural equivalent of the wardrobe in The Chronicles of Narnia: the gate to the garden of Balmoral Cottage. Despite the otherworldliness of this place, it’s not winter all the time here, and in spring the entrance to this magical garden is framed by the great white cherry, Prunus serrulata ‘Tai Haku’. Its arching branches of luminous petals and coppery foliage are a fitting curtain-up for this fantastical garden.
Balmoral Cottage was once home to the head gardener of The Grange, the big house next door belonging to Collingwood
