Mothecombe House

Mothecombe House sits in a sheltered valley surrounded by intimate walled gardens; a formal flower garden with borders crammed with Echiums, a terrace designed by Lutyens and a kitchen garden filled with lavender designed to attract bees. Below the house, an orchard gives way to woodland gardens, which follow the course of a stream, through Gunnera-fringed pools, down to the sea.

Thorn House

Thorn House has spectacular views; Dartmoor to the north and, south, one can almost see the sea. The Rose Garden and Long Walk are magnificently decorated with vast marble urns originally from Trentham in Staffordshire. In the woodland garden wonderful rarities rub shoulders with champion trees on a bank sloping down to the glittering waters of the estuary below.

Wildside

The garden was started in 2004 and the lower garden, carved out into banks and hollows with paths meandering through the intensively planted slopes, provides a range of habitats to accommodate sun-loving plants on the well-drained tops to shade- loving woodland plants on the cooler, north facing slopes. The upper garden has a Courtyard Garden surrounded by a wisteria-covered pergola and a water garden inspired by South African wildflowers.