The garden lies within the remains of a small 15th-century fort, built towards the end of the Hundred Years’ War from locally quarried chalk. Later converted into a large farm, the site gradually accumulated agricultural buildings around and over the surviving medieval ramparts. By the early 2000s, many of these structures had partially collapsed, while substantial sections of the original walls, including their arrow slits, remained intact.

The garden was created from scratch within what had become a rather lifeless gravel courtyard centred on an oval lawn. At its heart, a chalk meadow now brings richness, seasonality and movement, its character subtly changing from year to year.

The path layout responds to the history of the site, revealing and highlighting traces of its successive uses, from medieval arrow slits to the former dairy entrance and a brick-paved cattle path. In place of the farm’s former cesspit, an L-shaped ornamental pond introduces a new layer of life to the courtyard.

Deliberately left without fish, the pond has become a thriving habitat for newts, frogs, toads and several species of dragonfly, which can be seen hunting above the flowering meadow in summer. Together, meadow, water and planting allow nature to gradually reclaim the historic courtyard while retaining a strong connection to the site’s past.