Ian & Barbara Pollard aka The Naked Gardeners

Ian & Barbara bought Abbey House in 1994 to make it their home for their family of three children and in the autumn of 1996 decided to create a garden that might attract visitors from around the world to the historic town of Malmesbury.
Ian formerly enjoyed a career in property development.  Some of his most notable work is visible in London; buildings such as the Marco Polo building opposite Battersea Park by Chelsea Bridge and the Sainsbury Homebase building in Kensington.

Barbara is a self confessed ‘Jack of all Trades’ listing teaching, fashion modelling, promotional, sales  and marketing work on her C.V.

Both enjoy the decorative arts in all its forms and whilst Barbara grew up in a garden with a small holding Ian made his first forays into horticulture as an adult once he owned a property with land on the east side of the country.

The purchase of C16th Abbey House with an unusually large5 acre town centre garden, fed an interest in history the couple share.  Empty for 3 years after its previous owners had vacated, it needed a good deal of work and love to bring it back to the comfortable family home the Pollards knew it could be.

Ian & Barbara now spend their every moment tending family and garden, rarely going further than the garden gates.  “We can visit other gardens in our library of books and from our collection of DVD’s” says Barbara, “although I’m not sure our children will forgive us the lack of holidays away!”

Ian’s epitaph will read “Why not?”  This is the first question he asks when an idea comes into his head.  If he can’t find a good enough reason to answer that question… he goes ahead.  

"We both try not to take ourselves too seriously although we take what we do very seriously.  It seems a person only has so much control in life and when you work with nature, especially the weather you have to accept what happens because there is nothing else you can do!!"

"We like to be occupied and feel that whatever the reason is that we have found ourselves where we are we should do our best to make the best of our situation and our environment."

"We are happy to share our environment with others – what would be the point of creating something lovely if no-one saw it? – and to work to the best of our ability to create a visitor experience is as good as it can be"

 


(Gardens closed to all visitors Saturday 12th May 2012)