When Tim and Darina began to try and restore the gardens at Kinoith to their former glory, they started here in Lydia's garden. It was choked with brambles and other weeds, an almost impenetrable thicket - a rather daunting challenge, to say the least! Lydia Strangman's watercolours and some old photographs were used as a reference for the restoration. Today, the short path between the hedges is lined both sides by a mixed border. Beyond these borders are plain lawns encircled by gravel paths. Planted in the borders there are roses and perennials for summer colour.
At the far corner of the right hand lawn, there is a small Summer House, swathed in a white-blossomed Clematis Montana, and beside it is a circular pool. When clearing Lydia's garden of brambles Darina discovered the pool. The second discovery under layers of leaf mould was a mosaic - the floor of the long forgotten Summer House. The original garden house was a rustic timber structure, prettily thatched according to Frank Walsh, who came to work as an apple picker in Kinoith in 1936. This was destroyed by fire circa 1942. The mosaic floor which was laid in 1912 incorporates the Shamrock, Rose and Thistle, the emblems of Ireland, England and Scotland. It is composed of shards of decorated pottery. We must suppose that this painstaking mosaic was the work of Lydia Strangman and her mother Sarah Strangman.
Beside the pool there is a wooden staircase which leads up to a Rustic Tree House, providing a splendid vantage point overlooking the gardens beyond the thick beech hedge. Built in 1989 as a viewing point to provide a bird's eye perspective over The Herb Garden, one can also glimpse the Folly reflected in the pond at the end of The Old Pleasure Garden and the ongoing developments in The Herbaceous Border.
