Kitchen garden designed to cut food miles and wow guests completed at Bovey Castle

A purpose-built garden designed to supply the freshest ingredients and take guests behind the scenes of an acclaimed Devon dining destination will open this spring.

Bovey Castle, the award-winning 60-bedroom historic manor in Dartmoor National Park, has completed its Kitchen Garden following a six-month project – and it has been created to impress guests both inside and outside of the dining room.

Its restaurants, the 3 AA Rosette Great Western Grill and 1 AA Rosette Smith's Brasserie, will both be served by the new 1400 sq m facility, which will grow herbs, vegetables and specialist seasonal ingredients such as edible flowers as chosen by its chefs.

The garden features a vegetable bed, cut flower bed, potager bed, tiered garden beds with perennial planting, a soft fruit bed, and salad beds as well as a pair of greenhouses and a polytunnel.

But visitors will also be able to roam around, explore the space and even enjoy a drink or canapé as part of their visit – with plans to host horticulture-inspired activities within the picturesque countryside setting, including garden tours which will take guests through the entire process up to harvesting.

John Mann, Head of Estates at Bovey Castle, said: “This project has been created completely in-house, drawing on a wealth of knowledge from across the team over the last six months and we are really excited to see the results.

“Our kitchen garden will be an active food source supplying the kitchen, but also as enrichment experience for our guests who can get a full sense of that farm-to-table ethos, enjoy an al fresco canapé and even take part in activities and workshops such as seed sowing.

“Sustainability is a huge priority for us and the Kitchen Garden will allow us to minimise our food miles, as we can grow a portion of what our chefs need just a few metres from the kitchen.

“It’s part of a wider push to recycle everything we use and work with local suppliers wherever possible – and you can’t get more local than this.”

Bovey Castle will also see its walled Victorian garden, used to supply the kitchen in the past, converted into a wildflower meadow to encourage greater biodiversity in the 275-acre site, with 60 fruit trees also planted.

The hotel, which is part of the Eden Hotel Collection, is one of Devon’s premier tourist destinations.

Alongside the 60-bedroom manor house and 22 private lodges, the venue boasts an array of activities ranging from archery and air rifle shooting, through to 4x4 off road driving and a championship golf course.