Bothy And Former Kitchen Garden Walls

The bothy and former kitchen garden walls date from around the 1780s and were built for the 1st Countess of Ilchester. Constructed from limestone rubble with dressed quoins and red brick arches, the bothy features a slate roof with gabled ends and a lateral stack topped with a short brick shaft and yellow clay pot. This small, rectangular, two-storey bothy has one room on each floor. The ground floor, accessible from the east side, includes a lateral fireplace on the west side. The first floor is reached by steps leading up to a doorway on the south end. The bothy is integrated into the east side of a nearly square walled kitchen garden that covers about 1 acre.

The bothy has stone-tread brick steps leading to the first-floor doorway on the south gable end, which features a cambered brick arch and a plank door. The north gable end includes a 2-light casement window with glazing bars on both the ground and first floors. The east wall has a ground floor doorway at the center with a wooden lintel and a plank door, while the inside west wall facing the kitchen garden is blind. The kitchen garden walls rise to about 3 meters high and have doorways with cambered brick arches; however, a section at the north end of the west side has been breached.

Inside the bothy, the walls and ceiling are plastered, and the first floor has a boarded ceiling. The history of the site is notable, as Abbotsbury Gardens were initiated by the 1st Countess of Ilchester, who built a walled garden for Abbotsbury Castle, which was destroyed by fire in 1913. The gardens contain significant planting by William Fox-Strangways, the 4th Earl of Ilchester, and the planting up to around 1900 has made it famous as a 'sub-tropical' garden. It is listed on the Gardens Register with grade I status.