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Sir Roy Strong and his wife, Dr Julia Trevelyan Oman, planted a yew hedge on light reddish, sandy soil that had been grazed for aeons by farm animals. They had recently bought an 1820s Herefordshire house in the corner of a triangular field. In the 25 years since they have fashioned one of the most important formal gardens of the late 20th century. It is perfumed with roses, punctuated with busts and statues and strung out with vistas and alleys, resulting in a sense of intimate grandeur.

Sir Roy began the garden as an act of faith in troubled times. The mid 1970s were brimming with political unrest in Britain and Sir Roy, as the new Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London mounted "The Destruction of the English Country House", an exhibition to spotlight what had been lost of Britain's architectural heritage this century. While this concentrated the public's mind, Sir Roy needed a personal touchstone, his own safe world, and an outlet for the creative energies not absorbed by the museum. The two overriding influences in Sir Roy's gardening life have been Cecil Beaton ("the first person to ever walk me round a garden"), and John Fowler, the interior decorator. As money became available from his book contracts and lecture tours, and from Julia's design work for opera and ballet, it was poured into their three and a half acres, and parts of the garden were named after their various commissions.

The Laskett is full of contrasts. The graceful cedar Lebanon casts reflective shade over a statue of Flora. Seen from a large plant-filled conservatory on the east side of the house, the arrangement of box-wood knots changes complexion, season by season, as one flower scheme supersedes another. But it is to the west of the house, after passing through the hedged courtyard enclosing a tiered fountain, that the box of delights begins to open up. The first grand vista runs between narrow beech hedges to the Silver Jubilee Garden and the Pierpont Morgan Rose Garden where old roses, arise from beds filled with Hidcote lavender and alchemilla mollis. The Scandinavian Grove, a small area of woodland planting, is a brief interlude before eyes are directed along Elizabeth Tudor, a dramatic avenue of pleached limes. At the end of the avenue is the Shakespeare Urn, celebrating Sir Roy's receipt of 'Shakespeare Prize' for his services to literature. More gardens-within-gardens reveal themselves as you progress from the Beaton Steps, through Roy's Birthday Garden, the Hilliard Garden, (where the initials 'R' and 'J' are set out in box plants in gravel), Mary Queen of Scots Walk, terminated by the Victoria and Albert Temple. Sir Roy and Dr Julia now share this structured paradise with two Maine Coon cats, Larkin and Souci. Their feline predecessor, the Reverend Wenceslas Muff, is immortalised in a leafy walk named after him, and a new monument. Although the garden has been planned to the last inch, the pomp and circumstance of classical allusion allows for pockets of informal surprise. The orchard contains more than 100 apple varieties, and an intensely worked organic vegetable garden is productive all year round.

The gardens are open to visitors by arrangement.

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