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Please check with garden owners or their website to confirm current dates open
May - Sept; 2nd Sundays; 2pm - 5pm. Mill tours every half hour. Last tour 4pm.
For groups of 20+
Summer
Irises, roses, delphiniums, day-lilies and dahlias
Adult £6, includes guided tour of mill.
Adult, Garden only £4; Child £1
All tickets are season tickets
Groups (min. 20) £7.50 pp includes tour of the mill, tea and cake.
Conservatory Civil licence for garden weddings in the gazebo
Working Water Mill which grinds corn and generates electricity for local use and the National Grid.
Oak House, Bruton
At The Chapel, Bruton
Bruton
A three-quarter acre garden complements the famous water mill and uses the mill stream to great effect as it winds through the garden over waterfalls and through ponds before cascading into the river. The colour-themed garden features iris and delphiniums in June, then climbing roses and clematis over arches and pergolas as the summer progresses. There are also good displays of spider daylilies and over 100 varieties of dahlia, some very unusual.
There is also a workaday vegetable garden and a cutting flower garden. A lovely riverside walk up to the top weir, where the leat and river divide, is also worthwhile for the mildly energetic.
The garden was designed in 1995 by Philip Brown and his plan was implemented by the then owners who did the hard landscaping and concentrated on planting summer and autumn perennials. The mill itself, whose location was mentioned in the Domesday Book, dates from 1290 and was originally built by John le Gaunt, hence its name. It was owned for four centuries by the Weston family of local landowners. Documents detailing the complete history of the mill were saved by Sophie Weston, the last of the family and reputedly the model for Sophia Western, heroine of Henry Fielding's novel Tom Jones.
The mill tour includes a guided tour around the mill mechanism, which is started up to show it in action. The working Victorian turbine which grinds the corn, is supplemented by a modern turbine which generates enough electricity for up to ten homes. An altogether fascinating experience which was show-cased by Adam Hart-Davis on television in 2004.