With its tile-hung walls and tall chimney stacks, the 16th-century cottage at Copyhold Hollow is the stuff of fairytales, made all the more enchanting for its wooded backdrop. Set back from a quiet West Sussex lane, it sits at the bottom of a steep sided hollow that looks as if it has been left behind by a giant wielding an enormous ice cream scoop. Geologists believe it’s a natural formation, but Frances Druce, who has lived here since 1993, isn’t so sure. “There are a lot of hammer ponds from the iron ore industry in the area, and they’re all man-made,” she says. “But, who knows?”
However it was formed, the cottage and setting are magical and made even more so by Frances’s 30-year creation of a beautiful woodland garden. When she first moved in, restoring the cottage took most of her attention. This she did herself, employing the building skills she’d developed
