Telford & Wrekin Council

Designer: Michael Vout and Chris Jones, Telford & Wrekin Council

This silver flora garden celebrates the 250th anniversary of the birth of one of the nation's greatest engineers, Thomas Telford.

'The Thomas Telford Tollhouse Garden' is inspired by Telford and his tollhouses on the Holyhead Road, which stretches from London to Holyhead. The tollhouses were also the toll keepers' home and time was spent gardening for leisure and pleasure. The garden also helped sustain the household with fruit and vegetables. This garden aims to capture the essence and quality of Telford's designs.

'The Thomas Telford Tollhouse Garden' is set in the 1820s and features a tollhouse, privy, toll gate, green picket fence and even the highway itself. Details such as the roof on the tollhouse, colour of the fence, construction of the highway and footpaths and boundary treatment all meet Telford's specifications.

'The Thomas Telford Tollhouse Garden' is divided into a fruit, vegetable and herb garden, with cabbage, carrots, beetroot, strawberries, gooseberries and rosemary and a decorative garden with ornamental plants. The vegetables in this garden were all available in the early 1800s.

Foxglove (digitalis) is prominent in this garden as it highlights a link with another renowned Telford man, Dr. William Withering. Dr. Withering explored the properties of foxgloves (Digitalis) and from these plants developed a heart medication.

It is the garden designers, Michael Vout and Chris Jones, first time exhibiting at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Previously they have exhibited at Malvern and won a number of RHS Gold and Silver medals.