The Drum Inn, Cockington, Devon
Ten years ago the garden at The Drum Inn was finally laid out to a design, based on a sketch by Cyril Fairey, which illustrated Edwin Lutyens original ideas for the garden. The design was never fully implemented; only a pair of Lutyens’ distinctive brick steps linked by one of the axial footpaths were constructed in the 1930s. The sketch showed a grid of axial footpaths forming a series of grassed ‘squares’; crab apples were to be planted in the centre of each of the ‘squares’. Chris Pancheri, the Conservation Officer of Torbay Council, consulted me, as the Conservation Officer of The Devon Gardens Trust, some twelve years ago at the initial stage of the project. I was fully involved throughout and gave Chris my full support in progressing the scheme.
The ‘new’ garden is a delight. This major landscape improvement not only enhances the setting of an important listed building by one of England’s most respected architects but, by realising his original design for the garden, is of considerable historic interest. Chris and his colleagues are to be congratulated on negotiating the landscape scheme as part of the planning application by Bass Taverns for alterations to the Drum Inn.
John Clark
Conservation Officer
First published in GHS micro-news 87a summer 2011
Category: Conservation |
1 Comment » 
The ‘New’ listed garden is an unkempt mess of untended grass and overgrown pathways. The whole of the Mill area is derelict and neglected with the mill pond containing masses of green scum looking weed and a dead fish – a really attractive site for the few tourist who still brave a visit to Torquay. Why is the majority of the area at the centre of the village so derelict and abandoned when the Court building,craft areas, and cricket field are very clean and tidy? Cockington is listed as one of the tourist attraction to visit – how disappointed visitors must be.