A romantic, semi-wild garden blooms inside a once-mysterious silhouette | Gardens
Country diaryGardens This article is more than 9 years oldA romantic, semi-wild garden blooms inside a once-mysterious silhouette
This article is more than 9 years oldTrematon Castle, Lynher Valley: We wonder at the labour of dragging up stone to create the precipitous motte, now planted with fennel and marjoramOn the outskirts of this secluded demesne, sweet chestnut and beech are laden with nuts, and the limes droop with yellow bracts and little fruits. Among sun-dappled undergrowth of ferns and hemp agrimony, clumps of bear’s breeches, pink hydrangeas and spires of echium hint at the garden within.
A mysterious silhouette up on the wooded hilltop, above the creek of Forder Lake, near the confluence of the Lynher with the Tamar, this Norman castle is normally closed to the public. Elizabeth I ordered Francis Drake to store looted treasure here before shipping it to the Tower of London, and the castle is still owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. The 13th-century gatehouse survives but a section of the encircling wall was demolished to allow views from a new house, built within the bailey in 1808.
The present lessees are creating a garden around that house, and have been holding open days this summer. Flowery shrubs of eucryphia and magnolia mingle with roses in curving sweeps of bright herbaceous borders. Wild carrot and grasses add to the romantic, semi-wild effect and, on the sunny terrace that overlooks a vista of tidal water and the woods of Antony House on the opposite bank, the scent of lavender and rosemary wafts among crinums and agapanthus.
Fennel and marjoram flower on the precipitous motte that rises above orchard and kitchen garden. We wonder at the labour of dragging earth and stone upwards to create this ancient site and build the massive walls of the keep, 3m thick and 8m high to the ramparts. Above treetops the view is commanding: across the Hamoaze to Plymouth, Devonport and the dockyard; further east to the skyline of Dartmoor; north to Kit Hill; and south to the Rame peninsula, topped with Maker church. Below, a train is glimpsed, en route to Brunel’s bridge; across the Latchbrook stream, suburbs of Saltash engulf the parish church of St Stephen.
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