Dewstow Gardens

Our View

Dewstow is a white-painted 19th-century house, standing on a rise, surrounded by tidy lawns, rock gardens, a string of pools linked by streams and a border colour-bright with perennials and bulbs. This attractive but almost conventional garden is just a curtain-raiser for what lies beneath the ground, a labyrinth excavated and created because of one man’s passion for ferns and tropical plants. Henry Roger Keane Oakley, a director of Great Western Railway, bought the Dewstow estate in 1893 and embarked on creating a natural-looking habitat for his plant collection. Steps flanked by a balustrade lead down to dimly-lit grottoes, water trickling down rocky walls and a large pond with a waterfall. Then, around a corner, is a large, lush fernery once topped by a large glass dome. Massive columns support the roof of a large grotto, and a stream snakes through the centre. Stepping stones bridge channels of fast-flowing water and man-made ‘stalactites’ almost touch the surface of the water. Sunlight streaks through gaps in the walls. Rocks are moss-covered or tightly bound with clinging evergreen plants; some almost block one’s progress. All is not quite what it seems. After falling into disrepair, the grottoes were restored by the Harris family after they bought the estate in 1999. Now the gardens and grottoes are almost back to the glory days of their creation in the late-Victorian era.