Garden at Stokes House, Ham

It was more by luck than judgement that I discovered on the day that a house just around the corner from me was open to the public for charity, so of course I went.


The garden is in Ham Street which, as the name implies, is the central street in Ham and it stretches from Ham Common to Ham House on the river.

Ham Street has a mix of housing from different periods, including some fairly new properties (i.e. less than twenty years old) but it is some of the older white-faced cottages that you can see in this picture peering over the garden wall.


The basically rectangular shape of the garden is rescued from banality by some structural features that divide it up into different sections. Elsewhere a hedge hides the vegetable garden and here a pergola provides a boundary and another border for flowers and shrubs.


Surrounding the house itself is another border. Here a collection of small plants provides a wide range of shapes and colours for the eye to feast on while a trim box hedge keeps them all neatly in their place.