
When Margaret Nettlefold planned the garden at Winterbourne, daughter Valerie revealed that her mother ‘lived with gardening books for a year or so’. Here, the influence of Gertrude Jekyll is inescapable. Winterbourne is filled with Jekyllian detail inspired by her 1899 classic Wood and Garden. Each month, we follow in Margaret’s footsteps to see how the…

Peter Leadbetter is a trained Psychologist having completed a Masters Degree at the University of Birmingham in 1976. He now lives in Moseley with his wife, who teaches at the University, and regularly visits Winterbourne to relax and enjoy the garden. We asked Peter to share some of his memories of the garden and the…

Jo Gooding is a Birmingham-based photographer with an eye for detail, subtle shades and tones. A former exhibiter in our own Coach House Gallery, Jo is also a Project Support Officer for the University of Birmingham where, in between a busy work schedule, she makes time to indulge her passion for plants at Winterbourne. We…

Horticulture is a pursuit of such breadth and all-encompassing habit, that many of those who practice it may seem as distant from one another as those of different professions altogether. Winterbourne was conceived at the height of the Arts and Crafts movement. Inspired by the movement’s chief protagonist, Gertrude Jekyll, the cult of the herbaceous…

Winterbourne’s broad terrace was employed successfully by architect, JL Ball, as a means of transitioning from house to garden. Ball prescribed a typically understated treatment of the retaining wall and in particular the small verandah which links projecting cross wings on either side: ‘the ceiling and walls inside the verandah to be whitewashed and the…