A RETIRED couple have put their house on the market complete with one of the most unusual gardens in the country – which measures 30ft wide by three-quarters of a mile long.
Former postmaster and mayor Ian Topham, 73, bought his two-bedroom house with wife Barbara, 71, a decade ago and they have enjoyed tending the extra-long patch, which used to be a private railway track before the Second World War.
The couple are now selling the plot at Alne near York, along with the former gatekeeper’s cottage, named The Gables, that sits at one end of it, for £340,000. Mr Topham revealed it takes him at least 30 minutes to walk to the end of the garden and back, and the hedge that runs all the way down one side of it is in need of constant trimming.
The former mayor of nearby Boroughbridge has transformed the elongated plot of land that a previous owner had used to grow trees.
He said the garden was once the route of a privately owned railway that was removed in the Fifties, and that the house was originally occupied by a gatekeeper who operated a level crossing.
He said: “The track joined the main line a few miles away. But the tracks were taken up after the Second World War and soil was put down.
“The bottom third of the garden is now a wild garden with trees growing in there. I have to cut a path through it quite regularly but we do it properly just once a year.”
The garden is divided into a number of areas including a patio, pond and barbecue area behind the house, surrounded by flower borders.
Beyond it is a 12ft greenhouse used for growing seedlings, tomatoes and cucumbers, while an enormous 40ft structure further down is for tomatoes and year-round baby carrots and turnips.
Then there is a rose garden with pergola, followed by a 70ft-long Nissen hut that Mr Topham used as a workshop.
Further down are two paddocks and an old railway goods carriage once used as a goat shelter before you get to the wild garden with trees, daffodils, snowdrops, other wild flowers and a stream.
Mr Topham is reluctantly selling up after suffering a stroke last September.
He said: “We have seven grandchildren and they have had plenty of fun in it, building dens and swings on the trees. We get pheasants, partridges, hares and even deer at the bottom of the garden.
The Press gardening writer, Gina Parkinson, who has a 300-foot long garden at her home, said: “I would expect the sort of person that’s looking at this is someone like myself who wants a garden with a house.
“By anyone’s standards this is a large garden, but there are several things you could do, including breaking it into a number of ‘garden rooms’, which would help add interest and make it less daunting.”
• Have you got a garden bigger than this? Let us know at The Press newsdesk on (01904) 567131 or email newsdesk@thepress.co.uk
Long goodbye
NEXT time you complain about commuting half an hour into York, spare a thought for Ian Topham, because that’s how long it takes him to reach the end of his garden every day.
It used to be a railway line but when Dr Beeching decided he knew better, the land was sold off to become one of the country’s quirkiest gardens, measuring 30 feet by three-quarters of a mile.
Now Ian and his wife Barbara have decided that being in their seventies, it’s time to sell up and let someone else take on the long-distance mowing duties.
Presumably, only those with a stout pair of walking boots need apply.
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