The Thousand Year Old Garden

“It is a fascinating read and best of all, with appetite whetted, the reader can arrange to visit the garden which opens to the public through the National Garden Scheme.”

* Country Life magazine *

“A unique insight into a special place, written with tenderness and passion by a gardener with a real eye for detail”

* Countryside magazine *

Steward Smith professes not to be a writer but his easy, conversational style married with an extraordinary eye for horticultural, historical and even personal detail belies this.

* The Field magazine *

Readers will have their interest piqued by this captivating work, and can visit the garden to see for themselves (though Lambeth Palace itself is closed for refurbishment)

* The Field magazine *

His book is like the contented conversation between two people sharing a bench: ruminative, tangential, full of wisdom.

* Church Times *

A most charming and original story of a gardener and his garden

-- Roy Lancaster

A wonderful grasp of the natural world, and the delicate balance between the cultivated and the wildlings, and the gardener's role in bringing out the best of both

-- Roy Lanca