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The National Trust entrance to Mottisfont |
Mottisfont is by some measure the most visited National Trust garden in the country, the main attraction being its fabulous rose garden, created in the old walled kitchen gardens by Graham Stuart Thomas from 1972 onwards. In the main walled area, he brought in many from his own extensive collection of roses while in the north garden he planted only old roses, many which had been thought lost, but which he was able to source from
Sangerhausen, a noted rose garden in Germany.
The gardens were until his recent retirement looked after by David Stone, and attracted many rose specialists such as Jon Dodson, who also maintained a beautiful collection of his own old roses.
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Graham Stuart Thomas's own watercolours of some of the roses.
When you visit, don't miss the little exhibition in the potting shed near the entrance to the rose garden, which as well as having some beautiful watercolours painted by Graham Stuart Thomas himself, also has a short history of the garden on a video loop, narrated by Audrey Hepburn.
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Click
here for more photos of the house and garden