To visit William Robinson’s oval vegetable garden at Gravetye Manor, we had to eat an expensive lunch, because the hotel that runs the site doesn’t let people wander around otherwise.
I think that, probably without question, this is the most important historic vegetable garden in the UK. Robinson (1838-1935), who reacted against the artificiality and strictures [edit: and impracticality…] of pompous Victorian gardens, developed his idea of the “Wild Garden”.
And there was room in his vision for more than ornamental horticulture. Robinson loved trees, and with this oval vegetable garden he showed how important growing food was to him also. Think of him, therefore, as one of the great horticultural rebels alongside the likes of Masanobu Fukuoka and Eliot Coleman. The garden is kept in rude health by head gardener Tom Coward – and provides an abundance of vegetables for the hotel.