Property: Historic rescue with a modern twist

SO MUCH for private gardens. But what value do we as a nation place upon 'public' gardens? Not much, says the Royal Town Planning Institute which, with other bodies, is calling for gardens to be given the same protection as listed buildings. 'Many of Britain's finest parks and gardens are not recorded, let alone protected,' it says in a manifesto aimed at changing conservation laws.

About 1,200 parks and gardens in England have been registered: a tiny fraction of the historic homes they are often linked to. But this means only that local authorities should take 'due account' of their importance when considering planning applications, and is too weak to resist encroachment by roads and other development.

At English Heritage, where a controversial cost-cutting exercise is under way, insiders cite the way that grounds around Mentmore House were allowed to be converted to a golf course, and warn that many unregistered municipal parks and gardens are under threat as hard-up local councils try to sell assets. A huge row is building up over plans for a shopping centre on a registered estate at Eastern Neston in Northamptonshire. Ironically, the owner is Lord Hesketh, a former environment minister.

But one new house has helped to save rather than destroy a historic site. Lincombe Keep looks as though it has sat on the headland over Torquay for centuries, but was designed for a local businessman only two years ago by the architect John Pritchard to blend in with the terracing of a registered garden. It, too, is now listed, one of the few new homes to have this status, says Charles Lawson, of the joint agents Jackson Stops in Exeter, which is seeking to sell it for pounds 900,000.

The gardens were laid out early this century for Julius Drew, founder of Home & Colonial Stores, to improve the view from his house across the bay. A house called Castle Tor was later added to the gardens. Part of the site was sold in the Eighties. Planners were at their wits' end because this area had become derelict, but after some hard negotiations they took the plunge by allowing a new home to be built into the terracing as a way of restoring the historic site.

Now the gardens have returned to their original glory and merged back into those of Castle Tor. The only price for the planning permission is that they are opened to the public several times a year.

(Photograph omitted)