Mapperton
Gardens is a romantic valley garden deep into a lost Dorset combe
among tumbling hills and unspoilt countryside. The gardens descend
from the great lawn, through the formal topiary down to the woodland
garden. The manor house with its church,stable block, coach house,
dovecote and courtyard identifies with its countryside, a
glorious harmony of golden sandstone. Pevsner's Dorset guide says "there can hardly
be a more enchanting manorial group than Mapperton."
The
house, Elizabethan in origin, enlarged in the late 1670s, is a marvellous
example of
a West Country manor in harmony with its surroundings, growing into the landscape with every century.
Now the home of the Earl and Countess of Sandwich, Mapperton continues
to be a
family
house and harks back to the restoration of Charles II when the first
Earl of Sandwich
brought
the King back from Holland.
