The romantic moated garden of a 16th-century manor house in Norfolk
The distinctive crow-stepped gables and soaring chimney stacks of Hindringham Hall in Norfolk cast exquisite, 500-year-old reflections on the still waters of its 12th-century moat. In summer, dashes of colour – orange smudges of California poppies and rich blue marks of delphiniums – are both held suspended in the shimmering water, doubling the magic of the season and flickering with memories of summers past.
You might imagine that a moated garden would have been romantic from the start. But when Charles and Lynda Tucker moved to Hindringham in 1993, smitten by the quiet of this peaceful edge-of-village spot, the garden was well maintained but not really gardened. ‘Even the vegetable garden was grassed over,’ says Lynda, who arrived with a boot full of plants from her previous garden, a mission to ‘lift, divide and grow things from seeds and cuttings’ and a plan to tackle one area at a time.
She tackled the vegetable garden first. Framed by a high brick wall, this south-facing plot on the opposite side of the moat is tilted towards the sun and reaches down to the water. Entering through a wooden door, you find yourself in an immersive, abundant space. There is a box-edged herb garden, elegant with standard gooseberries and bay trees in pots, cages brimming with soft fruit, and rows of runner beans with parsley at their feet. ‘I always double plant, so the beans and parsley get watered at the same time,’ Lynda says, sharing the knowledge she has built up over the years. Loveliest of all are seductive glimpses of water through the haze of asparagus along the water’s edge. On a sunny day, you could think you were in Italy.
Beyond the vegetable garden is the delphinium walk, designed to have two main seasons of interest: first a gorgeous swathe of bearded iris and lavender blue catmint, and later a dazzling stretch of delphiniums, each one grown from seed. Here too is the greenhouse, which Lynda says is ‘the key to everything’. All the vegetables are started off in the greenhouse, it protects the pelargoniums in winter and, in summer, it is high with fragrant tomatoes. The moat here is edged with a low-mounding hedge of the white-flowered Cistus monspeliensis, a handsome evergreen shrub, staggeringly propagated from a single plant.
The Tuckers’ approach to their garden is constantly inventive. When a mature chestnut fell in one corner, Lynda decided on a grove of silver birch underplanted with cyclamen and wood anemones. When it was realised that the opposite corner of the moat was at a lower level to the rest, she opted to celebrate the different growing conditions by creating a bog garden. Today, this area is lush with purple Thalia dealbata and the voluptuous, white-flowered Zantedeschia aethiopica and has a tantalising boardwalk leading to a small wooden deck.
More recently, when the opportunity arose to buy an adjacent piece of land, which was listed as an Ancient Monument, Charles leapt at the chance to clear the scrubby vegetation and reveal a series of important medieval fish ponds. These had been built at the same time as the moat, on the instructions of the Prior of Norwich to supply the Bishop of Norwich with freshwater fish such as eel and pike. The grass here is now kept short by Hebridean black sheep and there is a new sense of openness and connection to the countryside beyond. It has become a perfect place to linger with a drink on a warm summer evening and watch swallows swoop down over the water.
Hindringham Hall is renowned for its wonderful drifts of narcissus in early spring, but by midsummer, it is the roses that take centre stage. ‘Everyone who arrives over the bridge looks for the source of the delicious scent of roses that welcomes you to the inner part of the garden,’ observes Lynda. It was the eminent rosarian Peter Beales who suggested planting
a row of the intensely fragrant magenta shrub rose Rosa ‘De Rescht’ under the soft pink rambler ‘Albertine’, which is trained against the front of the house. Another wall dances with the sweet peach buds and candy pink and white flowers of Rosa ‘Phyllis Bide’, and yet another is festooned with generous clusters of the single-flowered white rose ‘Rambling Rector’.
The gardens within the moat are enchanting. It is here, especially, that Lynda was keen to create ‘a balance between the formal and the informal’. There is a wild garden, which begins with snake’s head fritillaries, Narcissus pseudonarcissus and Anemone blanda and, by midsummer, is a lacy sea of ox-eye daisies. And there is the more formal west lawn, flanked by
an immaculately maintained Victorian nut walk and a new pergola, carefully constructed from old brick and now host to further glorious roses. The beds around the west lawn are the most colourful in the garden, featuring a bold succession of orange oriental poppies, papery white, yellow-centred Romneya coulteri and glowing deep blue delphiniums.
Perhaps most enchanting of all – and surely the ultimate marriage of formal and informal – is the gravel garden at the bottom of the west lawn, with its elegant stone urns, gentle steps leading down to the water and comfortable benches nestled among free-roaming lupins, geranium and Verbena bonariensis. Thanks to the owners’ years of resourceful hard work and inspiring sense of purpose, Hindringham Hall has become a most romantic garden whose peaceful atmosphere will almost certainly persuade you that things have always been this way.
In 2025, the gardens of Hindringham Hall, Norfolk, are open until October 8, Tuesdays 2-5pm, Wednesdays 10am-1pm and Bank Holiday Mondays 10am-1pm: hindringhamhall.org
Richard Bloom1/7Foxgloves thrive in the courtyard beside the holiday cottage, where Rosa ‘Rambling Rector’ clads the upper part of the wall.
Richard Bloom2/7Rosa ‘Crème de la Crème’.
Richard Bloom3/7Rosa ‘Francis E Lester’ climbs the courtyard wall at the back of the Hall.
Richard Bloom4/7Featuring the intertwined initials L and P, the metal gate devised by Norfolk-based garden designer George Carter was a wedding present for Charles and Lynda’s son, who will inherit the Hall. It replaced an old wooden gate below the elegant Victorian wrought arch and leads to the west lawn.
Richard Bloom5/7In the wild garden, created between the side of the house and the moat, a mown grassy path leads through a sea of ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare), which flower in the late spring following on from snowdrops, primroses, snake’s head fritillaries and Anemone blanda.
Richard Bloom6/7Purple water irises bring colour to the bog garden, along with orange hemerocallis lining the path beside it, set off by the distinctive leaves of Gunnera manicata
Richard Bloom7/7Looking towards the Hall from the medieval fish ponds, where water lilies and rushes have established themselves.
