History
The Formal Gardens were very run down in 1973 when the Somerset County Council, with th support of the Fire Brigade, initiated what was to become one of the first major garden restorations in the country. Fortuitously, when restoration began, some of Gertrude Jekyll's original planting splans were discovered in the potting shed at Hestercombe stuffed into a drawer where they had lain undisturbed for seventy years!
The work to restore Gertrude Jekyll's original plating was mainly carried out in the early years of the restoration but as more information becomes available, it is further refined. For example, new research stimulated a major reassessment of the planting of the Great Plat and it was subsequently re-planted in 1998.
