Visit to Mounton House

This is a rare opportunity to visit a major new private garden restoration and development by world renowned garden designer Arne Maynard.

Mounton House was the home of Henry Avray Tipping, garden designer and Architectural Editor of Country Life. In 1911, he set about building the house and its extensive gardens as a celebration of the Arts-and-Crafts aesthetic, where house and garden were conceived as a single entity. It was completed in 1914, just as the First World War started. However, the effects of the war on the garden team and the Edwardian lifestyle took its toll on Tipping and he gave up the estate in 1922. Over the intervening years the house and garden fell into disrepair until it was purchased by its new owners. In 2016 they set about renovating the house and they engaged Arne Maynard to restore and develop the garden, a process which continues to this day. Very few people have had the opportunity to view this magnificent new garden.

When he left Mounton House, Tipping designed and built himself a new house and garden at High Glanau. The current owner of High Glanau, Helena Gerrish, is an expert on Tipping and recently published ‘Mounton House – The Birth and Rebirth of an Edwardian Country House’.

Helena will introduce us to the garden and be our host together with Tim Stretton, Head of Gardens and the 6-person team. The garden starts with a series of ‘rooms’, with the kitchen garden and terracing around the house being more formal, including gorgeous roses, amazing topiary and pleaching. The garden becomes more relaxed towards the gorge with the huge rock garden and cascade linking a series of pools and numerous specimen trees and shrubs.

Directions Mounton House is a mile west of Chepstow on the A48 in the community of Pwllmeyric. Approaching from Chepstow on A48, as you enter the 30(20)mph zone there is a bus stop on the right and the entrance to Mounton is next right. Arriving from the west on A48, drive through Pwllmeyric and at the end of the village, passing Rosemary Lane on your right, turn next left into lane to Mounton. On entering the lane, bear left up the narrow driveway to the house complex. You will be guided to the parking area.
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