Walled Garden And Font, Millearne

The Walled Garden and Font at Millearne date back to the earlier 19th century and represent an exceptional example of a terraced garden that once fronted Millearne House. This site includes a small walled garden, a large brick walled garden, and a font, all featuring Gothic details with fine carvings, piers, and gateways.

The formal terraced garden is located to the east of the small walled garden and to the west of New Millearne House. Its northern wall includes a datestone from 1828, an armorial panel, and the base of a monumental polygonal turret, which may have been part of the original house. This wall overlooks the site of the former Millearne House, now a lawn, and features a coped ashlar terrace wall with elegantly carved piers topped with a lion and a hunting dog, flanking a flight of steps. To the east, there are Tudor Gothic gatepiers and timber gates, while the walls to the east and west are battlemented.

The small walled garden is situated between the formal terraced garden and the large walled garden. It has a high snecked rubble northern wall that contains potting sheds on its northern elevation and Gothic recesses on its southern elevation. There is a Gothic gateway linking it to the large walled garden to the west, along with a curved approach wall and a lower wall to the east. The top terrace features a large rectangular pond, with a terrace wall that has central steps and carved piers at each level, and the wall is decorated with urns and carved piers that include armorial panels.

The large walled garden, located to the west of the small walled garden, is a rectangular-plan garden dated 1840. It has high ashlar-coped brick walls in English garden bond with stone quoins. In the center of the southern wall, there is an ashlar Tudor gateway that is intricately carved with a pair of shields displaying the coats of arms of John George Home Drummond of Millearne and his wife, Mary Bothwell Drummond.

The font is positioned to the south of the large walled garden's Tudor gateway. Likely dating from 1840, it may have been designed as a sundial. It features carved tracery panels on an octagonal plinth that supports a richly sculptured bowl adorned with alternating Home Drummond coats of arms and stylized foliage.