Oxfordshire Glorious Gardens from Above

Britain has some of the finest gardens anywhere in the world.

For me, it's about getting in amongst the wonderful plants

that flourish in this country

and sharing the passion of the people who tend them.

However, there's another way to enjoy a garden...

..and that's to get up above it.

I love ballooning

because you get to see the world below in a whole new light.

From up here, you get a real sense

of how the garden sits in the landscape,

how the terrain and the climate has shaped it.

And I want you to share that experience with me.

This is a day that promises wonderful flying weather

and a chance to see one of Britain's most wonderful counties.

We're exploring Oxfordshire today

and, despite being one of the most-densely populated counties

in the country,

it still remains mainly rural.

Oxfordshire lies in the South,

bordered by Gloucestershire to the West

and Buckinghamshire to the East.

Being landlocked,

Oxfordshire is furthest from the paths of most Atlantic depressions,

with their cloud, wind and rain, so the climate is relatively calm.

Perfect, in fact, for ballooning and gardening.

The geography of Oxfordshire is very varied.

In the North, we have the rich Redlands

and, in the West, the beautiful Cotswolds.

And slap-bang in the middle of the county

is that ancient seat of learning, Oxford University.

But I'm here to see the gardens.

Today, I'm dropping in on two Oxfordshire gardens

begun by formidable women,

whose legacy is now under the guardianship of the next generation.

Now, you worked with Miss Havergal.

What was it like during that period?

She could be very, very strict.

The farmers would be quite frightened of her.

CHRISTINE CHUCKLES

We'll be messing about on the river at Henley-on-Thames,

where your knees might come under some scrutiny!

Women at the regatta are always expected to wear a dress

and the dress has to be below the knee,

otherwise they will be told to leave.

And I do a bit of inspection myself.

Go on, how many manky ones have you got?

Have you got a manky one?

-Oh, look.

-Oh, look, you've got one! Yeah!

-Yeah.

-One each.

-You caught me.

-One each.

-HE LAUGHS

From my bird's-eye view in the sky,

I'm looking out for a very special eight acres.

And there they are, Waterperry House and Gardens,

one of Britain's first ever horticultural schools for women.

Waterperry Gardens lie close to the eastern border of the county.

This grand house in the grounds was not only a school,

it was home to the Waterperry girls,

the first generation of women horticulturists who studied here.

Most of the garden I'll be visiting today lies south of the house.

Here, the relaxed landscaping becomes more formal and structured.

Vistas lead you through to intimate and peaceful spaces

like this one, the Tudor-inspired Formal Garden.

Or, if you follow your nose,

you'll find yourself tipsy with the scent in the Mary Rose Garden.

But, high as I am,

one feature of this garden stands out above all others.

One of the most exciting things about viewing Waterperry from above

is that you can see the vast amount of colour that's down there.

The borders just rippling along the walls,

the intensity of the colour from the trials beds.

All brought together with passion, and I can't wait to get down there.

I enjoy coming to Waterperry

because of the connection of women and gardening.

It was a school and, for me, having been in education myself,

that's very important.

It's the standard, it's the love.

Every time you come, you feel an intimacy,

a special atmosphere within this garden.

Plants, people and education coming together

to create a very beautiful garden.

The Waterperry Gardening School was started by this towering lady,

Beatrix Havergal.

Beatrix was a passionate gardener

and a woman of formidable determination.

Her dream of establishing a horticultural school for girls

came to fruition here in 1932.

Students would undergo two years of rigorous training

and leave with the cherished Waterperry Diploma.

During the Second World War, Waterperry became a market garden

for much-needed food production

and accommodating members of the Women's Land Army.

They were soon put to work ploughing and Digging For Victory.

Miss Havergal, dressed as always with a smartly knotted tie,

cut a singular figure and she had two very distinct ambitions.

One was her principle of achieving horticultural excellence -

lines had to be straight, plants correctly planted.

Secondly, she believed in sharing and passing on the knowledge

and the opening up of opportunities for women.

When one student told her that she would be leaving to get married,

Miss Havergal cried, "But what about the garden?!"

Miss Havergal retired

and sold Waterperry in 1971 to the School of Economic Science,

and she died nine years later, aged 79.

Her legacy not only lives on through this beautiful garden

but through the thousands of girls who studied under her.

One such girl is Mary Spiller,

who continued Miss Havergal's work at Waterperry after she died.

I'll be meeting her later.

She in turn trained and continues to influence

the latest custodian of the garden, horticultural manager Rob Jacobs,

who's working in Waterperry's orchards.

Hi, Rob. I thought it was you down here. How are you?

Hello, I'm all right.

I can see you're picking. Do you want a hand?

Yes. Well, we've got you a bag.

Oh, ey, great! Let's cross it over do this...

-Yeah, arms through there.

-Head through.

-The bottom one.

-That's it.

-That's it.

-I remember these, from t'old days. Aye.

Right, where are we going to start?

There we are.

Gentle, tender, loving care.

No fingers.

You cup the apple and you rotate it up.

So there's no damage and everything's hunky-dory.

-What you don't want is to use your fingertips.

-Right.

And if you ever bite into an apple and there's a little bruise,

you can put your fingers to it and you can see

and, you know, when we're picking, it happens

and Chris, our fruit manager, he has to come out

and he has a little rant at everybody -

they're not using their hands, not rolling it up.

So if you can feel pressure on your fingertips,

-you're picking the apple wrong.

-Mm.

'Waterperry is pretty famous for its apples.

'They have over five acres of orchards

'and grow around 60 varieties for eating, pressing and cider making.

'It's no wonder Rob takes so much care with the fruit.

'As a custodian, he has a very strong tradition to uphold.'

In a magazine called The Fruit Grower, in the '70s,

they said the five most influential people for growing fruit

in the last 100 years, four men

and one woman - Beatrix Havergal.

There you go, you see.

For many years Miss Havergal won gold medals

at the Chelsea Flower Show for her exhibit of one particular fruit,

the strawberry.

Is there a fruit more evocative of a British summer than a strawberry?

I don't think so.

It's actually a member of the rose family,

and its wild cousins were found all over the temperate world.

It was the crossbreeding of these wild strawberries

that give us the succulent, sweet fruits we eat today.

Summer-fruiting varieties are the largest and most popular.

They have a short but heavy cropping period over two to three weeks,

but planting different varieties

can provide you with a crop from early to late summer.

Pick them when they're bright red all over,

and eat them at room temperature,

because this is when they're at their most tasty.

What was it like working here as a youngster?

-Oh, as a young man?

-Yeah.

-Um, it was slightly scary.

-At the time, the two ladies who did my job were Mary Spiller...

-Yeah.

..and a lovely lady called Jean Manger.

But you had to do things THEIR way.

Well, what's it like, being bossed by women?

Do you know, I've never seen it like that and it's only cos...

(they're right.)

CHRISTINE LAUGHS (Ssh!)

Now you did say, "It's only because they're right."

I've got two daughters and a wife at home,

so it's good for me to say that.

SHE LAUGHS

Get these in there, then.

Right. Careful and steady. If you release the side there.

I've done this before, you know.

You can come here again, you know, Christine.

-Can I have a job?

-Yeah.

As she goes because you don't want to bruise them.

There you are, you just withdraw it gently and there you are, you see.

Oh, was there an offending soul in there?

Well, you're never going to get it absolutely right, I mean.

Go on, how many manky ones have you got?

-Have you got a manky one?

-Oh, look at that one.

Oh, look, you have got one. Yeah, one each.

-You caught me.

-One each.

So how many apple varieties have you got here?

Well, on-site we've got about 63

but we've actually got a tree that we call our little family tree.

It's a bit more than a family tree. Nearly all the varieties of apples.

-On one tree?

-Yeah. Do you want to see it?

Cor, yeah, come on, let's go and have a shufty.

Blimey, there's a lot of different varieties on this.

Do you like it? It's just to show how clever we are.

It's our family tree.

Great, so a lot of different grafting been going on here.

Yeah.

Grafting, where a section of a stem with leaf buds from one

variety is inserted into part of a tree, is a horticultural technique.

You combine one tree's best qualities with

the roots of another tree that offers vigour and resilience.

Apple is malus domesticus.

It has the most forgiving, stretchy, cambium layer of any tree.

So the bark...

So if you want to do something clever.

Yeah, the bark, the green bit underneath.

You want to do anything clever, do it with malus domesticus. It's wonderful.

Grafting is an ancient skill.

The Chinese were performing grafts over 4,000 years ago,

before the knowledge travelled across the continents to Europe.

This 25-year-old mother tree is a variety called Spartan

but has approximately 50 other varieties growing from it.

If you look in here.

We'll pull that out the way, can you see the fuse in the bark?

-That's been where...

-That's the old bark...

-And that's the new.

-..and this is all the fuse.

-..and that's the new branch.

And how old would that be, then?

Well, this is quite vigorous.

I think they're now grafts on to grafts.

So this would be about three to four years

because we've been doing it about seven years now.

One of our local varieties is Oxford Beauty, here.

-Oh, right.

-It's doing all right.

-It's all right that.

It's not too bad. We also have Eynsham Dumpling down there.

I can see that, yeah.

Right at the back, you can see that's the weak one.

On the other side there's Old Fred. That's Old Fred Wastie.

Oh, I can see that. Yeah, I can see that, yeah.

Old Fred Wastie, he was the man that actually bred all these

Oxford varieties, or most of these Oxford varieties.

We've even got a little orchard of them.

-Just a few trees standing.

-Lovely.

-It's keeping that genetic material in the county.

-Absolutely.

Before buying Waterperry,

Miss Havergal ran another small garden

and, to make ends meet, she'd sell the produce at a local market.

Times may have changed

but the ambition of bringing affordable local food to the people

of Oxford has been grasped by a new breed of producers in a unique way.

This is Cultivate.

Cultivate is a co-operative, which sells fruit

and vegetables from its farm directly to the public.

This is one of several vans that they have operating in the city.

-Thank you.

-Bye, see you soon.

-Bye.

But what they sell comes from here, a ten acre community farm.

Over £80,000 was raised three years ago to rent the land

and fund the start-up costs.

Now, nearly 400 members

and volunteers support the co-op with their time and hard work.

Tracey Jones is one of them.

Community farms are absolutely brilliant in that they bring

people on to the land that haven't got their own land

but can just have the opportunity to come out on odd days

and experience what it's like to grow food and harvest food.

So it's really, really important to bring people into farming

that wouldn't necessarily get a chance to do it.

It's an Oxford-based farm

and a number of the members are very well-educated.

One of the founders, Joe Hassel,

is a former philosophy, politics and economics student.

I came to Oxford to study and in my undergraduate days,

I did nothing to do with horticulture or food production.

I just really got into gardening.

Then I carried on to do a horticultural apprenticeship.

The benefits of this type of food production are abundant.

One great thing about local food economies is the variety you get

in every aspect.

I mean we're growing five or six different

varieties of tomato in this little polytunnel, so you get your

punnet of tomatoes and it's not one cherry, you've got five different

cherry tomato varieties and I think people really appreciate that.

It makes you engage with your food, it makes you think about it,

it makes you cook it differently, it makes you taste it differently.

Today, volunteer Niko O'Brien is harvesting veg for sale

later in the vans

I'm picking peppers and I'm aiming for the bigger ones

rather than the smaller ones because some of them can still grow.

So, right now, they are going in this little box

and then taken on to the veg van

where they will be sold in various stops around Oxford.

-There we are.

-Well done.

But the farm is also educational and it's a great way of teaching kids

about the food they eat and where it comes from.

And then this one. Do you want to grab this one?

And so you're trying to do it without pulling out the other ones.

So if you hold it by the root, that's it, it's a bit easier,

I find.

-Yeah!

-Hooray!

Champion beetroot, look at that. That's very good.

Once picked, the produce is then distributed to the veg vans,

where an appreciative and hungry clientele awaits.

Star of the show is these, which Mia calls sweetie tomatoes

and some really nice blueberries. We've got some beetroot,

so I'm just going to experiment with some beetroots and halloumi

and from Cultivate's own farm, some really nice peppers.

At the moment, the tomatoes are flying off the shelves.

Those really juicy little yellow tomatoes,

which are really sweet, so they're great.

Beans, chard, spinach, everything just looks

so delicious as well, all spread out on the van.

Everyone's like, "Yeah, I'll have a bit of that, a bit of that."

It's been a real journey for me, in terms of discovering what is

actually available in the local area and it means that

I can also take the next generation along, my daughter,

to see how stuff is grown and that's also really great for her.

Cos that was a bit of a mystery for me as a kid, I think.

I think it's really nice that you can get to know your local

veg van driver and they're like your link to the farm

and you can find out what they've been growing,

what they're planning to put in the ground for next week.

It's great. You can see where your food's come from.

I couldn't agree more.

Delicious, locally grown fruit and veg is what we're all looking for

and here it is, right on the doorstep.

Miss Havergal would certainly have approved.

Becoming a custodian to someone else's life's work

could become a great burden

but, in former Waterperry student Mary Spiller's safe hands,

the gardens continued to flourish.

Now a sprightly 90-year-old,

to this day, Mary still tends her own garden.

But as a young woman,

opportunities to garden were a little more limited.

I had to decide what I was going to do when I left school

and of course, all I knew I wanted was an outdoor life.

But this was wartime, so I said,

"Well, a Land Army's much more of an outdoor life, I'm going to do that,"

and so that's how I got into it.

It was quite a hard life and you were working all day.

Each student would have a strip of land to hand dig

and it had to be perfectly level.

Miss Havergal was a perfectionist and because she was so enthusiastic,

you believed that perfection could be achieved.

You just worked for it and you didn't mind

because it gave you a great sense of fulfilment.

After graduating, Mary returned to Waterperry to lecture

and develop more of the gardens.

And, like Miss Havergal, she broke new boundaries too

when she became the first female presenter of Gardeners' World.

Well, we've had a really terrible winter

but not everything has suffered.

We've got some really gorgeous pussy willows here,

making us think that spring is coming at last.

Mary and the rest of the staff at Waterperry feel very much

the custodians of Miss Havergal's vision for the garden and her

prized herbaceous border has been lovingly tended for over 50 years.

Mary, you've been associated with Waterperry for a very long time

but what were the principles you used to create these beautiful borders?

Well, it was really the idea that was current in the 20th century,

in that this was just purely herbaceous.

No bulbs, no shrubs, no bedding,

and so you had to get your display by how you arranged your plants

and chose them and it was basically three seasons.

The first was May/June.

But if they were going to be planted in the front,

they'd got to look good after flowering

because you then had your next season,

which was the June/July, delphiniums,

the tall verbascums, phloxes. Lovely time, wonderful time.

Yeah, all that colour and fireworks.

Oh, yes, that's right.

And so you put those

so that, as they grew up,

they hid the early flowering,

and then you had the late season,

which was the September/October.

So it was quite a tricky planning device.

The idea behind it was

-that you did the work at certain times of the year...

-Quite.

..and if you've got bulbs there,

-they get in the way when you're digging in the autumn.

-Quite.

-You bring up a handful of bulbs.

-That's right.

But it was great fun, yes,

and Miss Havergal, this was her pride and joy,

and she arranged it and she taught me how to do it,

and then I looked after it for about 30 years too.

Well, it still looks good today, as I'm sure it did in those days.

Yes, well, they've carried on very, very well,

they're using the same principles.

Now, you worked with Miss Havergal.

What was it like during that period?

Well, it was hard work, of course,

because she expected perfection.

She could be very, very strict. Very strict.

I mean, big farmers would be quite frightened of her.

-CHRISTINE LAUGHS

-But on the other hand,

she was very sweet to everyone,

she was very caring for people.

We all ate together in a dining room,

we played together in the evenings,

went on the river together.

So you enjoyed it, you worked hard,

because she'd got such a lot of enthusiasm.

She wanted it to succeed,

and so you wanted it to succeed.

And then you had a great sense of achievement when things did -

when you grew a crop well or didn't.

Yeah, occasionally!

Not so good.

I remember once forgetting to move a line,

so when the seedlings came up

they were V-shaped instead of parallel,

but luckily we'd remembered just in time and sowed the extra line.

Excellent!

So before she could get out there, we were hoeing it off quickly.

While the cat's away, the mice'll play!

That's right, yes, absolutely.

One newer feature, developed by Mary,

is the water-lily canal

on the eastern border of the garden.

It looks fantastic now, but it's given Rob a few headaches.

So, Mary, what made you create this canal?

Well, we were finding that visitors were tending to stay

in the bottom part of the garden,

and so we put in that semi-circular bed

with brilliant colours in it.

But then that left us a rather empty space between the two,

so I thought the canal would just join the two.

But I didn't want anything too elaborate,

because you're looking out to the countryside.

-To a lovely landscape.

-Yes, that's right.

And so I didn't want lots of fountains and statues and things,

so we kept it very low-key.

But then it means you come across it almost unexpectedly.

And then it's quite exciting,

cos you've got all these different water lilies.

That's right, it's rather nice.

And what about maintaining it and looking after it?

Maintaining it. Well, first problem we had

-is our tap water is quite limey.

-Right.

We had huge lime-level issues,

and as soon as we sorted that problem out, duckweed came in.

So I didn't realise Mary was setting me one challenge after another

when she came up with the concept.

It's the principles.

You've got to keep going back to those strong principles.

One of the principles we were given is that the water should re-balance,

and so I took a dangerous thing last year,

where I said, "I'm not doing anything for 12 months",

and it's actually worked.

And we've got there.

You see, ponds, naturally,

given the right circumstances,

will actually re-balance.

I don't put any tap water in any more.

-No.

-I leave it to the rain.

-That's the trouble.

Tap water, you've got ammonia, you've got fluorine,

you've got chlorine, you've got all sorts of things.

And they need to evaporate off

and, though you've got the large surface area,

you've still got to get it to evaporate off.

You know, whereas Mother Nature... Nice acid water. Yeah.

So, I think, you know,

sometimes doing nothing is the answer.

In this occasion it absolutely was.

Yeah, yeah.

You need to train someone,

because then they get the ideas behind the work.

-Absolutely.

-They know what you're aiming at,

-and that's the main thing, isn't it?

-It absolutely is.

I have to stop myself

and listen to what Mary has said,

to make sure I keep repeating that,

and keep that ethos going on all the time.

And, you see, you will pass that on to the next person,

and they will have it ringing in their ears.

-Yes.

-Yes, of course.

Come on, let's have a look.

Waterperry is such a special place to me, and countless others,

that I want to give a tribute

to honour Mary's lifelong custodianship

of Miss Havergal's legacy.

So I've asked local artist Rachel Ducker, who sculpts with wire,

to make a piece of artwork for the garden.

Waterperry has featured heavily in her life too.

I used to take my son to Waterperry

when he was very young.

Really gorgeous to sit out there

and have a cup of tea and walk around,

and I like the ethos of the whole place,

being very spiritual

and to do with kindness and giving...

..and you can feel that when you're there.

Rachel initially started as a jeweller,

before she moved on to wire sculptures.

I love trying to catch a moment.

I sort of see my work as a bit of 3-D photography in a way,

because it's a snapshot of a moment,

is what I'm trying to catch,

and that's why I try and get the energy of the movement

with the hands, the hair.

Everything, just creating a scene, really.

Rachel's sculptures have featured at the Chelsea Flower Show,

and in gardens that have won a coveted gold medal,

but creating one for Waterperry is very special.

I'm really thrilled that I'm going to have a piece of my work in the garden there, actually.

Because I've been there for so many years

and I've had my work in the gallery there,

it's just lovely that I'll have a piece that will stay there...

for however long...it will.

I'm really happy about that.

Protecting and caring for someone's legacy in one lifetime

is no mean feat,

but 25 miles west of Waterperry,

an Oxfordshire landmark has been cared for by local people

for the last three millennia.

And the best view of what they care for is up in the sky.

This beautiful creature is the world-famous Uffington White Horse.

Leaping across a hill over 800 feet high,

it can be seen for miles around.

It's not the only chalk figure carved into the British countryside

but, at almost 400 feet long and 110 feet high,

it's certainly the biggest.

And, dating back to the Bronze Age,

it's the oldest too.

Below the horse is a dramatic dry valley known as The Manger,

with its sides rippled by the retreating permafrost

during the last Ice Age.

Legend has it that it's where the white horse descends

to feed at night.

Imagine arriving in this vale 3,000 years ago

and seeing this majestic beast for the first time -

the awe and the reverence it must have inspired.

Before the gods that made the gods

Had seen their sunrise pass

The White Horse of the White Horse Vale

Was cut out of the grass.

But why the horse was carved into the hill

still remains a bit of a mystery.

There are burial mounds nearby,

so a link to death and the spirits is possible.

In fact, people still bring ashes of the deceased

to scatter over the hill.

National Trust Ranger Andrew Foley

is entrusted with the upkeep of the White Horse,

but he has own theory about its origins.

It's not meant for human eyes, in my opinion.

It's set on the side of this hill in Oxfordshire,

one of the highest points, it faces the setting sun,

it's positioned above a landscape that cannot be explained

by ancient man,

so everything points to - it's an offering towards the gods.

One of those gods being Epona, which was a horse goddess,

so my theory is that this is an offering to that god.

Bring us good harvests,

bring us fortune, bring us long life.

That's what I think it is.

But why would the image of a horse

be so meaningful to Bronze Age inhabitants of the vale?

Horses were symbols of power and status.

Most people were born, lived and died in the same village

and hardly ever travelled at all.

So if you've got a horse, you have to be somebody important,

you have to be probably a chieftain or a high-class warrior.

A white horse would also symbolise your power and status,

because most native horses in the country

were brown, dull nags or cobs.

White horses would have been arriving in the country

through trade with Europe or beyond.

So, again, if you're that high-status

and you've got a white horse,

it's pretty much like driving down the high street in a Ferrari

instead of a Ford Fiesta.

Over the millennia, the White Horse has attracted some unique folklore.

Well, here we're working on the eye of the horse.

It's probably the most visited part of the horse

that people come to look at.

There was a couple of legends associated with it.

Firstly, it is said that,

should a maiden stand in the eye of the horse,

within one full year she will be with child -

take that as you will.

The second legend is that,

should you stand in here and spin round three times,

it will bring you good luck.

But that really doesn't help us with the National Trust management,

obviously we're trying to fight erosion everywhere across the horse

and that's why we have signs saying, "Please keep off."

We want you to enjoy,

but we'd like you to help us preserve it as well.

The horse is formed of deep trenches filled with crushed chalk.

Countless visitors, and rain washing the chalk down the steep hill,

means it has to have constant care

or the lines of the figure would quickly become obscured.

OK, so what I'm doing here is

I'm pounding chalk back into the eye of the figure of the horse.

It's a very labour-intensive job,

there's no great technology to it, as you can see.

Things probably haven't changed over the years.

It's just extremely... We call it like painting the Forth Bridge.

As soon as you've finished, you think you've finished,

then it's time to start all over again.

But perhaps the greatest enigma

surrounding this ancient white horse,

is that local people must have looked after it

for it to have survived for 3,000 years.

Whatever their reason for doing so, I'm so glad they did.

As you fly over the county,

you realise how quintessentially English and restrained

the landscape is.

And the next Oxfordshire garden I'm visiting

wonderfully reflects that setting - Kingston Bagpuize.

Like Waterperry, it's a 20th-century garden

created by a formidable woman,

and her legacy, too, is being guarded by the next generation.

It's a young garden but, viewed from above,

you can just see how wide that herbaceous border is.

Fantastic trees, marvellous planting

and some great landscapes.

Flying from the east, a stately sentinel of mature trees

creates a natural avenue that leads to the house itself.

On the north side lies a formal lawn

trimmed by straight-edged paths,

encompassing newly planted Portuguese laurel trees

and an elegant fountain.

Further north, informal paths lead you through the trees and shrubs

into the parkland.

This isn't a garden that screams in your face.

It has a softer voice which gently encourages you to stroll within it.

It was started by well-to-do spinster Marlie Raphael,

who bought Kingston Bagpuize in 1939

and spent the rest of her life developing her beloved garden.

Plans were laid out, plants were bought,

and a lifetime's work of creating a garden begun.

She travelled extensively, visiting gardens around the world,

and bringing back plants to see if they could work at home.

She was determined to create a garden of her own.

After her death in 1976,

the gardens became a little less loved.

Thankfully, Virginia Grant and her late husband inherited,

and began to restore the garden to its former glory.

-Hi, Virginia.

-Hi, Christine, lovely to see you.

-Yeah, how are you?

-I'm fine, thanks.

What are you up to?

Well, I'm just sort of slightly doing a gentle trim,

more than a sort of hard prune, on these Portuguese laurel.

-Is that just to balance them up a bit?

-It's just to balance them up.

If you look at them all, they've not all grown evenly.

But, also, I want it to be

so that next year's flowering wood isn't all cut off,

which is what I think is going to be done

if you cut them into a lollipop.

So it's just short back and sides.

It's... Yeah, pretty much so, pretty much so.

Can I give you a hand?

Yeah, I'd be delighted, absolutely delighted.

So where do you get your inspiration from?

Well, I'm very influenced by Marlie Raphael,

because I feel this is her garden, I'm custodian,

not just of the house but the garden as well.

I've got all her invoices,

when she did her major planting right into the '60s and early '70s.

They actually did plans for the planting.

I've only got one of them, sadly -

I don't know what happened to the other.

-But talking about Marlie, wasn't she inspirational for the herbaceous border?

-Absolutely.

Yes, I think this was in...

It was in full bloom and it was tended throughout the war years.

I think it was the only bit of the garden which was as a garden,

rather than producing fruit or vegetables.

Well, there's bits to do, isn't there?

-Yeah, there's a lot to do.

-Come on, let's have a look.

We haven't had the kindest summer, unfortunately.

Well, there's quite a lot of dead-heading to be done here,

-isn't there?

-Yeah, sadly.

It's just not as good as it should be,

simply because it's been so dry these last few weeks.

Well, you know, some years you get a long display, don't you,

-and other years it's much shorter.

-Yeah, absolutely.

So what state was the garden in when you actually arrived here?

The herbaceous border here essentially had four plants in it.

So, a limited palette?

A limited palette, absolutely.

There were great losses here

in the hard winter of, you know, '81, '82,

and we sort of set about the restoration of the gardens

to realising a little bit what Marlie Raphael had done

and what we would like to go on doing.

So we've taken quite a lot back into the garden and I'm still doing it.

But what was Marlie like as a person?

Well, I don't have any first-hand knowledge,

because sadly I never knew her, although I grew up very close.

My mother met her on a few occasions

and said she was delightful and passionate about her garden.

And she travelled a lot before the war, between the wars,

but she didn't really travel nearly as much afterwards.

I think it was, you know...

She wanted to see what was happening here

and have her finger on the pulse and she was....

What's the overall plan for the garden?

I think she had one

where she wanted to plant the plants that she'd seen on her travels,

and to have them.

And have them she did.

Further down, at the end of the border,

an exotic Persian silk tree has just come into bloom.

Marlie may have seen this tree on her travels around Asia,

but it was first introduced into Europe in the mid-18th century

by an Italian nobleman.

In the wild, the tree tends to grow

in dry plains, sandy valleys, and uplands.

But it's planted as an ornamental feature in parks and gardens

for its stunning foliage and silky pom-pom flowers.

Its Persian name means "night sleeper",

because the leaves slowly close during the night.

To look this good, maybe you need a little beauty sleep.

They say, the more you travel,

the more you go and look at plants in the wild,

the better informed and the more aware you are

of the peculiarities that Mother Nature can throw up.

And I think those early days of travel

really set the palette and the tone

for British horticulture.

Because we had no reference point before then.

I'm sure. She wanted a garden where you could walk at any time of year

and you could find something of interest,

and I think that's really important.

But it's so easy to do, and people say,

"How do you get 12 months' worth of colour?"

You visit a garden centre one day every month

and buy something in flower

and you do it every month the same, for the year.

And at the end of the year, you've got 12 months' worth of colour.

I've never thought of that, but that's a really, really good idea.

So what's going to happen to the garden in the long term?

You know, do you have kids that are interested?

I've got two, Elizabeth and Alexander.

I have to say, they're teenagers and they're not really keen!

They're not interested in the niceties of gardening,

but they're very interested

in the whole...vista.

-OK.

-So, bearing in mind what I was like at their age,

you know, I think you've got to have that sort of opportunity

and chance to grow into it.

Yeah, and you see, what's interesting about youngsters,

is that often they don't actually say what's in there.

And, you know, you hope that, as a gardener,

you've sown a seed. And you probably have sown the seed,

but it may lay dormant for a hell of a long time,

and then one day it might bloom.

Like gardening, the seeds of a good idea can grow anywhere,

and 24 miles south-east of Kingston Bagpuize,

on the calm waters at Henley-on-Thames,

the idea of a boat race

between the great universities of Oxford and Cambridge

came to fruition in 1829.

It eventually became the world's most famous regatta, Henley.

Eloise Chapman is curator

at the River and Rowing Museum on the riverbank.

Henley's always benefited from the fact that

it sits on a stretch of the river that's very navigable up to London,

and with the introduction of locks during the 17th and 18th century,

the amount of trade really increased

and the size of vessels on the river really increased as well.

During this time, there was an increasing interest

in everything maritime,

and this was due in no small part

to Jerome K Jerome's book, Three Men In A Boat.

And around this time,

there was another travel book which came out, by John MacGregor,

called A Thousand Miles In The Rob Roy Canoe,

where he wrote about his adventures in his purpose-built canoe,

and we have one of these first canoes, called a Rob Roy,

that was built for him, in the museum.

The first Oxford-Cambridge boat race took place here

after two old school friends, who went on to opposing universities,

were rowing together when they came up with a plan

for an eight-oar race.

They chose Henley-on-Thames

because this stretch of the river was nice and straight.

In the inaugural race, it was Oxford who won the day,

and they have the winning boat in the museum.

The boat is very different to the boats you have today.

It's completely made of wood,

it's incredibly large, incredibly heavy.

It doesn't have outriggers for the oars

and it also has static seats.

So today you have a sliding seat, which makes rowing a lot easier,

whereas these are completely static.

The good people of Henley quickly realised

that messing about on the river could be very lucrative,

and the first regatta was established in 1839,

eventually increasing from a one-day event

to the five-day event it is now.

But despite advancements in its duration,

some rules weren't so progressive.

Perhaps the most shocking rule

was that no entrant was allowed to have undertaken

any task that was considered menial,

so nothing like a mechanic or an artisan,

where they'd be working for a wage.

The regatta was intended for amateur oarsmen

and it enforced strict guidelines.

But they didn't mention middle-class jobs

like doctors, lawyers and accountants,

So, in all but name, there was a class bar.

The offending rule was dropped in 1937,

but when it comes to sartorial tradition,

some rules are holding fast.

The regatta has quite a strict dress code,

and for men this includes blazers or jackets and flannels,

and blazers are quite a big part of rowing, and they came out of rowing.

They were known as blazers because they were so bright.

Women at the regatta are always expected to wear a dress,

and the dress has to be below the knee,

otherwise they will be told to leave.

No need for dress codes back at Waterperry, thank heavens,

although these island beds will have you wearing a smile.

'Much of the garden we see today

'was under the guardianship

'of Miss Havergal's former pupil, Mary Spiller.

'Mary was the first-ever presenter on Gardeners' World

'and has cared for Waterperry for over 50 years.'

Have a little pew.

Oh, well, thank you very much, that's very nice.

'To thank this modest woman,

'I've asked local artist Rachel Ducker

'to make one of her miniature wire sculptures.

'It will sit in this particular part of the garden

'that's filled with alpine plants Mary's particularly fond of.'

What we thought would be nice

is to leave something here

to recognise the woman that really started it off,

and what we did was asked a local artist,

that equally loves Waterperry,

to create a modern piece of art

that would reflect Miss Havergal and the principles.

And there we go.

How lovely! And she's holding a strawberry.

Absolutely.

Delightful.

So there we are, Miss Havergal with a strawberry.

The excellence of the standards -

you've got to have principles to produce a strawberry like that.

Yes, she was quite a woman,

quite a woman.

'I wholeheartedly agree, Mary. She was quite a woman!'

It's been so uplifting to see these Oxfordshire gardens

from high in the sky,

and to know that both the memory of the women who created them

and the gardens themselves

are safe in the hands of their new custodians.

With that kind of protection,

these young gardens might last as long as that ancient White Horse.