Bothy And Former Kitchen Garden Walls

SY58NE 3/10000

ABBOTSBURY BULLER'S WAY, ABBOTSBURY GARDENS (South East side) Bothy and former Kitchen Garden Walls

GV II

Bothy and kitchen garden walls. Circa 1780s for the 1st Countess of Ilchester.Limestone rubble with dressed quoins and red brick arches. Bothy has slate roof with gabled ends and lateral stack with short brick shaft and yellow clay pot. Small rectangular-plan 2-storey bothy with one room on each floor; the ground floor entered from the east side and has a lateral fireplace on the west side; the first floor is entered from steps up to a doorway on the south end. The bothy is built into the east side of a quadrilateral, almost square, plan walled kitchen garden of about 1 acre. The bothy has stone-tread brick steps up to first floor doorway on the south gable end with cambered brick arch and plank door; the north gable end has 2-light casement with glazing bars on ground and first floor; the outside east wall has ground floor doorway at centre with wooden lintel and plank door; the inside west wall facing kitchen garden is blind. The kitchen garden walls rise to about 3 metres high and have doorways with cambered brick arches; a section at the north end of the west side has been breached. INTERIOR of bothy has plastered walls and ceiling; first floor has boarded ceiling. HISTORY: Abbotsbury Gardens were begun by the 1st Countess of Ilchester when a walled garden was built for Abbotsbury Castle [burnt down in 1913]. It contains some important planting by William Fox-Strangways [1795-1865] 4th Earl of Ilchester and the planting up to circa 1900 make it renowned as a 'sub-tropical' garden. It is on the Gardens Register grade I.

Listing NGR: SY5641285055