THE PARK

Across the drive from the Service Wing lay the nursery garden, providing fresh vegetables and fruit.

The Head Gardener lived in the Lodge, and behind it was the home farm. From here fresh milk, eggs, butter and cereals could be taken immediately to the kitchen on demand.

A gate in the opposite wall and a short flight of steps gave access to the ice-well, where ice stored in the winter was so well insulated that it lasted all year for cooling wine and making ice-cream.

In Victorian times a range of greenhouses and hothouses were constructed to raise the exotic plants which were arriving in England from all over the world.

All through the 1840s and 1850s Nonsuch won top prizes in horticultural shows for exotic orchids and azaleas.