The history of Quinton Old Rectory

About the Old Rectory Garden

With nods to its ecclesiastical past, the garden intertwines the historical perspective of a Georgian garden with a modern aesthetic, creating a space that is peaceful and inspiring in equal measure. Formal and informal areas combine through a series of garden rooms that seamlessly blend, with areas dedicated to supporting wildlife, creating a hub for outdoor family living, for reflection and contemplation and growing organic produce.

The honeyed stone exterior and period scale of the house appealed to us, but it was the three-acre garden that sealed the deal.

It was not ever thus. We moved into Old Rectory in 2013. The honeyed stone exterior and period scale of the house appealed to us, but it was the three-acre garden that sealed the deal. At the time, the plot was fairly run-down – a tarmac drive, overgrown shrubs, poorly trees and acres of grass above knee height. But we could see its potential.

Designing the garden

Serendipity introduced us to our dream garden designer Anoushka Feiler, founder of landscape and garden design company Bestique, and the sister of a friend. It’s to her creativity, rigour and vision we owe our garden design.

Anoushka set about designing a garden that took account not just of our brief and its physical space but also the garden’s historical context. Taken by the idea that the ideal Georgian garden contained six different elements (including a menagerie, a kitchen garden, a pleasure garden…), she undertook to reinterpret each of these for the 21st century. The result is Quinton Old Rectory Garden.

The gardens extend over three acres, with the different garden areas linked by a series of paths inviting visitors to explore.

The main body of the garden is aligned along the axis of a cross, with an oak-framed garden house positioned at the centre of the intersecting paths. Features abound, with a rill dividing the flower garden, a sculptural firepit by Cathy Azria and a Monet-inspired oak bridge over our natural swimming pond.

The garden’s planting is sumptuous, the many grasses bringing a fluidity and softness to the garden architecture and a plethora of roses dominating around the house itself.

Our own favourite areas of the garden change from season to season.

Amongst the most commented upon garden design elements are our beautiful sculptural iron gates adorned with metalwork foxgloves (crafted by the superlative blacksmith Michelle Parker), the white painted trunks of the olive trees in our reimagined “kitchen garden” and the alley of pleached hornbeam trees providing a triumphal walkway to the centre of the garden.

As we emerge from later Winter into early Spring, the bulb lawn underneath our fruit trees bursts into bloom with a flurry of colourful bouquets of tulips, narcissi and muscari. We love the woodland garden, with its playful elements and natural planting, in later Spring and as we move into late Summer and early Autumn, the main flower garden really comes into its own.

Awards and appreciation

We’re extremely proud that Anoushka won “Best Garden” at the 2019 Homes and Gardens Design Awards for her design of Quinton Old Rectory Garden.

The garden has featured regularly in national and international media since its completion, with a feature on BBC Gardener’s World in August 2018 and a year later featuring as the setting for Nadia Husseyn’s BBC show “Summer Feasts” which was aired in August 2019.

Articles on the garden have appeared in the UK Publications Homes and Gardens (July 2018), The English Garden (June 2019) and Country Living (Christmas 2019), Landscape Magazine (January 2021), RHS The Garden (November 2021) and Gardens Illustrated (December 2022) as well as the US magazine Horticulture USA (Christmas 2019).