Kiftsgate Court Gardens

In about 1750 the poet and landscape gardener William Shenstone stayed at Mickleton Manor, and it was he who inspired the planting of the elm avenue which used to run between Kiftsgate Court and Mickleton Manor - now alas, destroyed by Dutch Elm Disease, along with countless other elms between 1972 and 1976. The line of Scotch firs silhouetted against the sky between Kiftsgate and the Warwickshire county boundary was also due to Shenstone's imaginative foresight, as were the lime trees bordering the front drive - although the house had not been thought of then. During the past fifty years most of these enormous trees have fallen. To replace them for future generations a row of six Tilia…

The garden at Kiftsgate up to 1920 consisted of the paved formal garden in front of the portico, beyond which was a plain grass field with wooded banks. The first thing Mrs J.B. Muir did was to make a lawn with steps leading to it from the formal paved garden, this was quickly followed by taking in what is now the Yellow Border and the Rose Border; the connecting bridge was built and the yew and copper beech hedges planted. In April 1954 the magazine Gardening had an illustration of the Yellow Border on its cover and inside an article by A.G.L. Hellyer, reporting that <blockquote>Each rose bush has grown to its maximum proportions and to the conventional gardener these proportions will come…