A FORMER Victorian kitchen garden at a top Test Valley tourist attraction is destined for a £300,000 makeover.

National Trust bosses have launched the Walled Garden Appeal – a project to create a contemporary to extend the flowering season at Mottisfont Abbey..

Essex-based Tristen Knight, the Royal Horticultural Society’s Young Designer of the Year 2012, has been hired to create the new garden along with Aralia Garden Design. The new Frame Yard Walled Garden as it will be known will be next door to world famous rose gardens which house the national collection of heritage roses, which bloom in June The site, next to the visitor toilets, was once home to the property’s shop but now has only ice cream/snack kiosk, an outdoor sitting area and a small vegetable plot.

Mottisfont’s general manager Paul Cook said of the project: “Once complete, it will be a more fitting introduction to our rose garden and extend our garden season beyond June with later flowering varieties of plants.

“Our hope is that this new garden will be enjoyed in its own right by tens of thousands of people every year, as a place to relax and enjoy its colours, and smells and sounds forever.” He added: “There will be frame structures in the garden where people can sit and shelter from the rain or sun and we might even host art or garden demonstrations.”

It is still to be decided what will be planted in the garden but later varieties of flowers and fruit trees will be included. There will also be a ‘meadow’ theme in the garden.

“We are in the process of designing the garden now and it will take about a year to plan and design and a further six months to build. Construction work probably won’t start until September 2016,” concluded Mr Cook.

The project is the brainchild of Mottisfont Estate’s ex-general manager Alison Evans who went on to become the National Trust’s assistant SE regional director of operations.

To find out more visit nationaltrust. org.uk/Mottisfont/Donate-Now