Lottery cash to restore Parker Bowles garden

A GARDEN designed by one of the greatest horticulturists of the 19th and 20th centuries is to be restored thanks to a lottery grant.

The Heritage Lottery Fund has given £487,500 towards the £725,000 transformation of the gardens designed by Edward Augustus Bowles at his home, Myddelton House, in Enfield.

Mr Bowles's great-great-nephew, Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles - the former husband of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall - was set to start the work on the Bull's Cross site today.

The gardens once attracted visitors from around the world because Edward Bowles succeeded in growing rare and difficult plants despite poor soil.

He was so successful that more than 40 varieties of plants are named after him. Yet after his death aged 88 in 1954, the gardens fell into ruin.

Some work has been done since the Lee Valley Park Authority took over the site in 1984. But this project, which the park authority is co-funding, will complete restoration of the site, which will be free to visitors.

Wesley Kerr, chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund in London, said: "The broad outlines and some of the plants from one of London's most poetic horticultural plantations remain at Myddelton House in a remarkably peaceful and evocative setting." Paul Roper, of the Lee Valley Park Authority, said work will include renovation of the pergola garden, rose garden, peach house and artefacts such as pots and stonework in the main garden.

The restored sections of the garden are due to open in spring 2011. The rest of the garden is currently open.

Bryan Hewitt, a gardener at Myddelton House for a quarter century, said: "It was quite an influential garden in its time and people came from all over the world to see it."