[14] The main part of Orchards is arranged around a square courtyard, which, according to Lutyens' biographer, Christopher Hussey, suggests the layout of a converted farmyard.

[19] From the road, the driveway runs alongside the windowless, buttressed wall of the stableblock, which according to O'Brien, Nairn and Cherry "leads the eye on to the entrance side of the courtyard.

[10] The west side of the quadrangle is a low cloister, that acts as a covered walkway linking the north and south ranges.

[14] Orchards is built on a hilltop overlooking the town of Godalming to the west[24] and the Thorncombe valley and the Weald to the southeast.

[25] The academic, David Dunster, notes that the formal parts of the garden are delineated on the northeast side from the woodland by a "rampart walk" that "emphasises the drama of discovering the distant views of the Hog's Back.

"[27] Jekyll writes: "The scheme of planting has been kept very simple, with crabapples, amelanchiers, gorse, and wild rambling roses where the woodland meets the lawn, and closer to the terrace rhododendrons, barberry, and spiraea.

[30] The focal point of the Dutch garden is the Grade II-listed fountain, which includes a water spout designed by Julia Chance in the shape of a lion mask.

[34] The walled kitchen garden, on the eastern side of the house, includes wrought iron gates designed by Lutyens.

[36] Tim Richardson comments: "Orchards and Goddards, particularly, seem to suggest both grandeur and humility at the same time – the Holy Grail for the English sensibility.

"[37] The writer, Clive Aslet, notes: "House and garden form an aesthetic unity at Orchards, the apotheosis of Lutyens' Surrey style.