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Kiftsgate Court Gardens is situated above the village of Mickleton in the county of Gloucestershire, England, in the far north of the county close to the county border with both Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The gardens are the creation of three generations of women gardeners. Started by Heather Muir in the 1920s, continued by Diany Binny from 1950 and now looked after by Anne Chambers and her husband.〔Thomas, Graham Stuart, 2003, "Recollections of Great Gardeners" , Frances Lincoln Ltd, p. 190.〕 Kiftsgate Court is now the home of the Chambers family. The Kiftsgate Hundred was the ancient area surrounding Chipping Campden. Today the 'Kiftsgate Hundred' stone, where the elders met to administer justice, stands in Weston Park Wood above Chipping Campden. Included in the Hundred was Mickleton, called Mycclantune, meaning 'big village'. It is a few hundred yards from the Hidcote Manor Garden owned by the National Trust. == History == In about 1750 the poet and landscape gardener William Shenstone stayed at Mickleton Manor, and it was he who inspired the planting of the elm avenue which used to run between Kiftsgate Court and Mickleton Manor - now alas, destroyed by Dutch Elm Disease, along with countless other elms between 1972 and 1976. The line of Scotch firs silhouetted against the sky between Kiftsgate and the Warwickshire county boundary was also due to Shenstone's imaginative foresight, as were the lime trees bordering the front drive - although the house had not been thought of then. During the past fifty years most of these enormous trees have fallen. To replace them for future generations a row of six ''Tilia Petiolaris'' have been planted. Kiftsgate Court was built in 1887-91 by Sydney Graves Hamilton who owned the large manor house in Mickleton.〔Jenkins, Simon, 2003 "England's thousand best houses", Allen Lane, p. 261.〕 An ancestor of his, Walwyn Graves (1744–1813), had built a Georgian front with a high portico on to Mickleton Manor, and it was this facade which was moved bodily up to the new site on Glyde Hill to become Kiftsgate Court. A special light railway was constructed up the elm avenue to do this and the records state that it was 'all to be done in the best manner possible and none but the very best material used'. Unfortunately a large Victorian back was built behind the Georgian facade. Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Muir, bought Kiftsgate in 1918 and at this time considerable internal alterations were made. A large ballroom occupying the entire wing on the first floor behind the portico was divided into bedrooms. Miss Hamilton, who owned Mickleton Manor, was said to have told Mrs Muir that the sprung floor of the ballroom was one of the most expensive items in the building of Kiftsgate. In 1954 they moved to the Front Lodge and their eldest daughter, Diany Binny and her husband Tony Binny came to live at Kiftsgate.〔Kiftsgate Court Gardens website http://www.kiftsgate.co.uk/history.shtml〕 They pulled down three sides of a courtyard containing sixteen rooms which is now the gravelled forecourt used for parking coaches. In 1974 Mrs D. Binny moved to the Front Lodge, where she lived until her death in 2005. Kiftsgate remained empty until 1981 when Diana's eldest daughter Anne and her husband Jonathan undertook major modernisation of the house making their home in the central part and creating a separate flat and tea-room. Kiftsgate remains a family home as originally intended by the owner's grandparents. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kiftsgate Court Gardens」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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