With views of expansive parkland and the East Sussex coast, a hidden garden overflows with exuberant late summer colour
THE ENVELOPING EXPANSE of Hastings Country Park and occasional glimpses of the sea bring a sense of holiday adventure to the climb up to Full Moon Barn. Access is via a bumpy, unmade track, and despite being largely secreted and enclosed by woodland, there is a feeling of freedom, combined with the exhilaration of the coastal air. The cry of distant gulls can be heard, while the wind whistles in from the sea, 650ft (198m) below. On approaching the stone building, its faÇade obscures the much-anticipated coastal view. Set back slightly from the track, the neat, but narrow, front garden is defined by rustic wooden fencing and low yew hedging. That stunning vista is finally revealed from the wooden sun deck sprawled along the back of the house. “On a clear day, you can see France,” says Tara Macdonald, who moved here to make a garden in 2012.
At her previous Hastings home, Tara just had a small shady yard, with a collection of higgledy-piggledy pots. “Ferns did quite well,” she laughs. Full Moon Barn, however, offered more spacious accommodation for Tara’s family of five children, and the property’s surrounding open – albeit windswept – 1½ acres of garden and fields had a spectacular coastal outlook and ample outdoor space, where the children could run and roam freely. “I loved the private, almost secret hilltop location, and it’s just a few minutes’ walk from Hastings Country Park, which is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty,” she explains. “We feel like we’re living in the countryside, yet we’re only 3 miles outside Hastings, which is great for schools, shops and the seafront.”
When Tara and her family moved here, there was a garden of sorts. While it was quite overgrown, there was discernible structure in places. “You could barely see out of the front kitchen window for a rampant fuchsia; the terraces cut into the sloping back gardens were enmeshed with weeds and brambles; and the sea view was obliterated by towering, unsightly leylandii cypress trees at the fo
