Some gardens are created from scratch, while others are built upon the foundations of what has gone before. It is very rare for a garden to embody both states at once, yet this is exactly what has happened at Chideock Manor in Dorset, where a historic garden has been lovingly restored and remade. Tucked away in a particularly bucolic part of the country, just a short distance inland from the Jurassic Coast, Chideock Manor Gardens span 12 acres and are set around an elegant Regency house.
To look at the gardens today, you would be forgiven for assuming they have been there for generations, gradually evolving over the years. But the truth is that when Deirdre and Howard Coates, the current owners, arrived here in
