Historic garden to be preserved

Part of the garden was designed by Lutyens and Jekyll

A lottery grant of almost £4m has been awarded to preserve a historic garden in Somerset.

Hestercombe Gardens, near Taunton, is best known for its Victorian shrubbery and an Edwardian formal garden created by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll.

The award is one of the largest to be given to a garden in the South West.

The heritage lottery fund has awarded £3.7m to help pay for further restoration, including work on an 18th Century landscaped garden which lay overgrown and forgotten until eight years ago.

A charity has been set up to manage the gardens, which have become increasingly popular since they opened in 1997.

The project includes a new visitor centre in the Victorian stable block.

A spokesman for the gardens said it was hoped the grade one-listed garden would attract more than 70,000 visitors annually.