EAGG visit - 9th June 2012

The group visited on the 9th June 2012 and what a fascinating afternoon it was.

Our host, garden owner Roger Last, set the scene, explaining that documents exist dating from the 12th-century that refer to the mill on this site.

The 1950s saw the beginning of a new garden, with further expansion taking place in the 1960s when the Last family came to Corpusty. Brothers John and Roger (and Roger alone from 1990) developed the 5-acre garden which started with no grand design but areas were developed and joined up.

The ground was originally water meadow and, therefore, water is a wonderful feature of the garden - streams, pools a rill and an impressive small lake with the river Bure forming one boundary of the garden.

There is an intriguing combination of formal and informal, old and new and an eclectic mix of buildings throughout (including a grotto). The planting throughout is lush and impressive.

In a two-acre part of the garden (on the other side of the road) that has been developed over the past 12 years, there are some wonderful trees including a tetracentron sinense - unknown to most of us in the group.

Jackie Smythe