S O M E R S E T
LOCAL HERO
The Newt is at the vanguard of the self-sufficiency movement and has glorious gardens to boot. Sandy Carr welcomes a new Somerset superstar
W
hen we moved to Somerset 12 years ago, top of our must-see list was the garden at Hadspen House near Bruton. It was extra special to us because the Popes, authors of the gardening classic Colour by Design, who created that legendary paradise, had been involved in the planting of our own new garden. Sandra Pope’s beloved roses scrambling through the neglected shrubberies had seduced us into buying our lovely, but decidedly down-at-heel old house. But we were too late. Hadspen’s garden had been
FROM ABOVE: Hadspen House has been reincarnated with love and passion by Koos Bekker and his wife Karen Roos into The Newt, with the glorious gardens as a centrepiece
bulldozed months before. Who could have performed this act of horticultural vandalism and what would become of Hadspen now? The ‘villain’ of the piece was Niall Hobhouse, son of Penelope Hobhouse, doyenne of British gardening. In The Country Gardener she had recorded her creation of another famous garden at Hadspen in the 1970s before the Popes’ 20-year tenure. In fact, Niall also had a bold vision for the garden. He launched an architectural competition for an ultra-modern design but the project floundered among bitter arguments between architects and gardeners. Bruised by the experience, in 2013 Niall sold what had been his family’s home for over 200 years, a Grade II* listed Georgian manor house with 372 acres of grounds and farmland, to South African entrepreneur Koos Bekker and his wife Karen Roos, thus initiating the next chapter in the long history of Hadspen. At Babylonstoren in South Africa, Bekker and Roos had already created a visionary garden-plus-hotel estate that attracted ecstatic reviews for its skilled husbandry and imaginative planting. It is still the only RHS-partnered garden in Africa. They applied the same dedication and expertise, not to mention a multi-million-pound budget, to transform Hadspen and create what has become
82 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | February 2020
P00-The-Newt.indd 82
19/12/2019 14:35