The Courts Garden

[1] The house known as The Courts, which was built c. 1720 and incorporated earlier fabric, was the home of a wealthy clothier from nearby Bradford-on-Avon, at the time a prosperous wool town.

[1] In 1909, Hastings built a Georgian-style conservatory and introduced a collection of garden ornaments brought from Ranelagh House in Barnes, London.

[1] In 1910, The Courts was bought by the Misses Barclay and Trim, and in 1921 by Major Thomas Clarence Edward Goff and his wife, Lady Cecile (a daughter of Gilbert Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 1st Earl of Ancaster).

Lady Cecile, strongly influenced by Gertrude Jekyll, was a keen gardener and she created various 'garden rooms' surrounded by clipped yews and box hedges, similar in style and layout to the contemporary gardens at Hidcote in Gloucestershire and Great Dixter in East Sussex.

Their daughter, Moyra Goff, retained a life tenancy and lived in the main house until her death in 1990.