Garden TOUR
From reclamation yard gems to theatre props, Little Orchard is full of beautiful surprises
As an example of a garden created from nothing – literally – you’d go a long way to beat Little Orchard in Gloucestershire. But 30 years down the line, Terry and Rod Clifford are still adding to it, creating new areas, always looking for the next flash of inspiration.
“We were broke,” says Terry candidly, thinking back to 1992 when the couple moved into their property. “A business venture had gone horribly wrong and we had lost all our money. Rod had known the lady who lived here for most of his life and she wanted to move and kindly gave us a private mortgage.”
So it’s clear that, with young children and a less than healthy bank balance, sorting the steeply sloped garden – “a jungle” – was low on their list of priorities. One thing in their favour was the beautiful location in the Slad Valley, made famous by author Laurie Lee in his novel Cider With Rosie. The garden is flanked by a nature reserve and woodland.
“The first thing we did was to create one flat area of lawn for the kids to play,” says Rod. “But at the time, while we had plenty of ideas for the garden, they outweighed our budget and ability to do them.”
However, bit by bit, the couple started to transform their plot. Rod hired a digger (eventually buying his own) and they created a series of terraced garden rooms, albeit with no real plan. Instead, they would be inspired by ideas or things that came their way. Keen amateur dramatists (they now own their own theatre, the Cotswold Playhouse in Stroud; Terry loves to act while Rod is set designer), they have used stage props in their garden.
A wooden bridge that takes centre stage in their Japanese area was used in the play Sweet Charity, while dotted around the garden are wooden statues from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. At the same time, Rod says he is happiest searching for treasures at th
