The garden at Mere House extends to about six acres, and provides a variety of colours and contrasts throughout the year.  The main features are a wide range of trees and shrubs, extensive lawns, a woodland walk and the long, narrow lake.  Visitors return to the garden year after year to see the snowdrops at the end of the winter, the daffodils in the spring, the rich colours in the autumn - or just to have a lazy day on the lawns in the summer.

The lake was formed in 1780, when the house was built, by canalising a stream which starts at the top of Mereworth Woods and runs down into the lakes at Mereworth Castle and on to join the River Medway at Wateringbury.

Most of the larger trees in the garden and surrounding land were planted by members of the Stapleton family, who lived here in the 19th century.  Many of these can be seen in the woodland walk at the eastern side of the garden.

The garden layout you see today is predominantly the work of Sir John and Lady Wells, who laid out most of the beds and planted numerous trees and shrubs from 1958 onwards.  They started opening the garden for the National Gardens Scheme in 1971.

The commercial greenhouse in the old kitchen garden and many of the larger trees were destroyed by the devastating hurricane of 1987, and the garden was further damaged in the gales of 1990.  The garden is more open now, but much replanting has taken place.

The present owners of Mere House, Andrew and Tessa Wells, have continued his parents' work in the garden, which they open by appointment throughout the year, with special days for snowdrops in February, daffodils a month later, and autumn colour in October.  In recent years major work has been undertaken to reinforce the lake's banks, and bunds have been landscaped along boundaries to its south to mitigate increasing road noise and light pollution.  These have been planted extensively with trees and shrubs which tolerate poor soil, and probably comprise the largest private earth-moving project in Kent in recent years.

The last few years have brought welcome attention from the gardening press, with the bulbs and spring blossom beautifully photographed by Nicola Stocken Tomkins in her articles in The English Garden (February 2005) and the NFU's Countryside Magazine (March 2006).  More recently, Leigh Clapp covered the imminent changes of autumn in her article, 'A chorus of colours' in Kent Life (October 2007), and Vanessa Berridge looked forward to spring in 'A Kentish delight' in The Lady (10 March 2009).

In recent years several charity events have been held in the garden at Mere House, as well as the Kent Heritage Event in 2005 and 2008, promoting a range of ideals, interests and skills illustrating all that is best in Kent's heritage.  National and local amenity associations and conservators demonstrated their activities and skills to several hundred visitors on each occasion.  Closer to home, several events have taken place in aid of the £0.75 m appeal for funding major conservation and repairs at St Lawrence's Church, Mereworth.

The garden is open for group visits by appointment at any time of the year, as well as the National Gardens Scheme on selected days.  Please click on open days for details of all garden openings.