Bingham's Melcombe

Robert Bingham acquired the manor in the early thirteenth century. A later Robert Bingham inherited it in 1524 and rebuilt an existing house around 1554; his grandson made further changes after 1593. Reginald Bosworth-Smith bought the property in 1895 and employed Evelyn Hellicar on the house. In 1949 Geoffrey Jellicoe received a garden restoration commission, with planting plans by Brenda Colvin.

About 17 hectares of formal gardens, pleasure grounds and woodland sit within a further 66 hectares of park, pasture and woods. The gardens were restored in the late 1930s, before Jellicoe's 1949 commission. Those dates point to more than one phase of twentieth-century work on a much older estate.