All types of edible herbs are grown in the elegant walled garden. Four main beds are arranged around a small pond with a fountain, which attracts frogs to eat unwelcome slugs. A circle of variegated lemon balm, which makes calming tea, grows around the apothecary rose, which Judith uses to make rose petal jam and other recipes. Many herb flowers are also used in food served at HANN’S HERBS. Winter savoury is clipped into formal hedges, while chives, salad burnet, parsley, alpine strawberries, violets, primroses and sorrel are also used to edge the formal beds.

A separate pudding bed contains plants like sweet cicely, angelica, borage and bergamot, which are useful for enhancing desserts. And there is also a large bed for salad herbs, including rocket, different types of sorrel, basil, coriander, Greek cress, parsleys, Japanese salad herbs like mizuna, as well as mustards and dill. Tender herbs like lemon verbena, scented geraniums and blackcurrant, pineapple and tangerine sages are grown in pots so that they can over-winter in the greenhouse.

All the herbs Judith grows can be planted in pots or window boxes, so visitors who lack space are taught how to do this and how to mix herbs successfully in herbaceous borders, with tall plants like fennel at the back, hyssops and marjorams in mid-border and shorter thymes or chives at the front. All of these herbs are used in recipes, demonstrated and then eaten during courses held in the summer and autumn.

Visitors soon discover that herbs are gods in the kitchen, having more impact on the taste of food than any other ingredients. The enormous range of herbs combined with Judith’s cooking experience is unique.