Newt, Somerset: an 18th-century orchard showcasing the finest tame apples

One place in the country you can see an amazing show of trained apples is an 18th century hedged orchard at The Newt in Somerset, written by Charles Quaist-Ritson. Photos of the orchard are by Clive Nichols.

A once upon a time in the West Country, a must-visit place was Headspan House near Castle Cary. Its owner Penelope Hobhouse created a beautiful garden in the 1970s with elegant combinations of perfectly chosen shrubs and herbaceous plants. Then, in the 1980s, the old hedge garden at Headspan was leased to Canadians Nori and Sandra Pope, who turned it into a living essay on the use of color in the garden and wrote a classic book about their art.

Now the garden - and the whole plot - is back''A must-see for all garden lovers (and many others) under the new name of The Newt in Somerset. What happened. The Hobhouse site was sold in 2013 to South African couple Koos Becker and his wife Karen Roos. They have the historic Babilonstoren winery with a huge French vegetable garden next to Franschhoek. It's quite amazing to consider the transformation of Headspin that they have made over the last 10 years.

One of the new elements at The Newt is the redesigned Parabola Garden. It is an oval garden with an old burnt brick fence, oriented to the southwest. Henry Hobhouse II built it on a steep slope in the late 18th century as a sheltered orchard. Its present composition is''the work of 70-year-old French architect Patrice Taravella, who "believes that a garden should be both beautiful and useful" (doesn't that suit us all?). It was Mr. Taravella who created the garden at Priory d'\''Orsan, a partner garden of the Royal Horticultural Society in the Cher department, which reflects French traditions of growing fruits, salads, herbs and vegetables. Parabola is a living dictionary of French horticultural expertise.