Jules Verne

Psalms 17:8

Visitors approach the Garden of Reflection along curving paths past the well pools. The planting echoes colours and shapes of the stained glass in the palace chapel.

Within the garden they find themselves beneath the gaze of the Cathedral tower, in a green and sheltering enclosure. Beside the path is a long, curving stone seat.

a place to pause and experience the Garden. Bishop Peter chose a line from Machado’s poem to inscribe on the stone bench because it expresses a spiritual journey ‘towards eternal values of truth, peace, justice and love. How we walk the path determines our destiny, we walk in hope.’

Wanderer, your footsteps are the path, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no path, the path is made by walking, by walking one makes the path and upon glancing back one sees the path that will never be trod again. Wanderer, there is no path – only waves upon the sea.*

At the centre is a rounded, chapel-like ‘poustinia’ open to the sky. This design reflects a religious tradition in Russia, where people seeking solitude to deepen their self-understanding would go into the woods and to small hermitages to reflect.*

*From A guide to the Palace & Gardens

This part of the Bishop’s Palace was built in the 1400’s by Bishop Bekynton, it is the home and working offices of the Bishop of Bath & Wells.

Prior to 2011 the wells and gardens were within the bishop’s private garden.

In 1451 Bishop Beckynton granted to the town a supply of water from the Wells within his palace gardens. A cistern inside this well house collected water. This ‘head’ connected enough pressure to force a supply through pipes to an outlet in the market place.

Overflow water from the marketplace wellhead ran down a gutter, washing blood and offal away from butcheries along the high street.

The statue on top of the well house is Bishop Beckynton’s hunting dog, a Talbot hound.

The designer of Stoberry garden, Frances Meeres Young who with her husband owns the house and garden has written a short history of the estate.

Stoberry Park  and Garden- A Landscape Transformed

Stoberry House and Park occupies the site of a former Mediaeval field.

Stoberry is approached at the head of College Road. It was built by Peter Davis, one of the resident gentry. In 1718 he began to acquire parcels of land. On this, he built himself a new Mansion, Stoberry, set in landscaped grounds. The name was antiquarian in inspiration deriving from an earlier name of the open field which was Stabergh. It was built and lived in by 1745.

The House was demolished in 1957 and used to stand where our pond-garden lake-is now situated; the present Stoberry House was originally the coach house.

“A whole new chapter in the family’s life began, arriving in Wells from Botswana and transforming an English jungle into a fantastic garden – a piece of paradise from a wilderness, filled with black sheep and barbed wire, left to run wild the untamed garden was awaiting transformation”, wrote garden journalist Mervin Hancock.

On viewing Stoberry for the first time, my first reaction was to turn around and flee, but my husband fell in love with the view and the position, so persuaded me to reconsider and imagine a vision that
could be created on the large blank canvas. So, we started gardening at Stoberry in 1997.

To the East of the House is the Walled Garden. Part of this used to be a very rough area, used for sheep and full of thistles and nettles, now the open part of the Garden – with one area leading you through to a view of the next. There is a new rose garden, which is sheltered and enclosed in a peaceful corner, allowing you to sit and enjoy the fragrances and the scent of the Clerodendrum. The sunken garden is a much more contained area, luring you to explore and wander.

When I started to think about of the design for the Garden, the advice given to me by friends was to break it up into several ‘rooms’- which I know would have worked successfully – but I feel we are so lucky to have space, and with my African background, I wanted to enjoy this. Gardening is great fun. Everyone’s opinions differ about the way a garden should look. I have always felt it is a bit like cooking…. some people like spicy food, others bland, and who is to say which one is right! For me living as far as possible in balance with nature is important.

You can read the rest of what Frances has to say about the garden transformation in a small online booklet. The book also shows the original house, the current house and garden before and after it was renovated.

• Stoberry Garden Booklet

Information in the Gazebo next to the pond explains that the owners had an unexpected surprise whilst creating the pond area. Until 2002 that part of the garden consisted of rubble and rough ground following the demolition of the original house in the 1950s.

The Garden Pond seemed to be an ideal way of recapturing a semblance of wonder that this location has to offer, situated as it is with such a wonderful backdrop.

The pond was originally going to extend over the area where you will see a rectangular formal pond. During the excavation stage on the large pond, the digger driver uncovered the corner of the capping to the well: a domed roof structure, but that was all that existed between us and the bottom! This is the first we knew of the existence of the well, and it was quite a frightening moment when a open hole appeared in the ground and we discovered that the well is 60 ft deep, and with 15 ft depth of water, and people would have been walking over it for year.

• Stoberry House Bed and Breakfast Accommodation and more…

Photos are a mixture from both my stays at Stoberry House.

William Ellery Channing

I couldn’t quite get the angle to frame the moon and the cathedral in the same photograph. I could have done with a bit of time but my companion would probable have got bored and impatient whilst I wandered around for the perfect angle.

The second photo shows the top of one of the trees from the first photo.