At first glance, the splendid garden at Daglingworth House in Gloucestershire appears classically English. After all, there are many characteristic elements: fine parkland trees, including a red oak and a copper beech; a walled garden with a rose pergola; a croquet lawn; herbaceous borders; and formality merging into woodland. But walk around and you soon realise that since they moved here in 1994, Etta and David Howard have created something superbly quirky.
You are greeted by successive surprises: as you round one corner, an artfully placed mirror gives the impression you are bumping into someone else. Stroll into the Walled Garden through the Burma Gate (panelled with six wooden carvings bought in Myanmar) and you plunge into a dark leafy grove from which you are drawn out into the open by diminishing sized paving. Vistas cutting across the garden in several directions constantly distract and
