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Michael
& Sarah Stone have settled. After raising three children, and following a career path
that took them to Italy, Scotland, and North Wales, the Stones have settled in Devonshire,
England. They have settled to 16 acres of land surrounded by lands under the protection of
Britain's National Trust. They have settled for history, for country charm and pace, for
the outlandishly lush greenery of rural Devon, for the pressures and pleasures of show
gardening, and for the joys of hosting guests at their home. |
SARAH & MICHAEL STONE AT CIDER HOUSE:
GRACIOUS HOSPITALITY IN THEIR DEVONSHIRE HOME. |
Michael and Sarah love gardening, and they love hosting. At their home, The Cider House,
the former refectory of medieval Buckland Abbey, on the edge of Devon's Dartmoor National
Park, their two loves come together.
Michael grew up to the east of Devon, in
Dorset, in another part of the gentle countryside of the south of England. As a very young
boy, Michael saw Dorset's tranquility shattered by German bombers during the Blitz of
World War II. Coming from a comfortably well-off English family, Michael was
well-schooled, and attended Cambridge, where he studied German and French. He pursued a
career in the paper packaging industry, during which he and his family lived in Italy and
later North Wales.
Sarah comes from the Lake District in England's
north. Her family name, Willink, is not English, but Dutch. She counts among her Willink
relations a family of New Amsterdam bankers who helped finance George Washington's
colonial army during the American War of Independence. Family lore says that after the
Revolution a grateful nation showed its appreciation by deeding the New York Willinks the
American side of the Niagara Falls. Finding the land useless, the Willinks gave it back to
the fledgling government. A generation later, another New York Willink became chief
engineer of the new nation's first great public work, the Erie Canal.
The couple raised two girls and a boy. The
younger two live in London, pursuing careers as an artist and an entrepreneur retailer.
The elder daughter is married with three children and residing in the Lake District.
Recently Michael retired from the paper
industry, where he worked for many years. He still consults occasionally, via telephone
and internet, and often by making the half-day's drive to London. At retirement, with the
children grown and gone, Michael and Sarah looked to fulfill their dream of returning to
the English countryside, and to the pursuit of gardening. They decided to spend more time
at home, and to share their pleasures with others.
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BUCKLAND ABBEY |
Their Cider House is on land adjacent to the protected grounds of the 13th
century Buckland Abbey, a former medieval monastery which survived
King Henry
VIII's
dissolution of the powerful holdings of the Church of Rome to become a rather majestic
Tudor home. During the reign of Henry's daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, Buckland Abbey became
the Devonshire home of Sir Francis Drake, explorer, privateer, courtier, soldier, and
admiral. (The English Channel port city of Plymouth is a half-dozen miles south of the
abbey.) |
The Buckland Abbey estate was acquired by the National Trust and lies under its
protection. Its many acres of fields and woodlands reach to the Tavy River and almost to
the edge of Dartmoor National Park. The estate includes the abbey, with its Great Hall and
Drake museum, a huge tithe barn, landscaped grounds, an Elizabethan garden, and miles of
marked walking paths. But it does not include the buildings and gardens of its former
refectory, The Cider House.
Michael and Sarah Stone have made The Cider
House their comfortable home, and have furnished it appropriately with period pieces and
antiques acquired during their lives. The house is large enough to be separated into
private quarters and three bed and breakfast rooms. Across the courtyard from The Cider
House is the historic
Sarah's Cottage, the spacious,
three-bedroom lodging used by Home At First guests. Next door are stable which board a few
horses of local citizens. A tennis court for guests' use is also in the secluded grounds
of The Cider House complex.
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The Stones have 3 acres in cultivation. There are terrace gardens, an herb garden, a
woodland and herbaceous garden, and a walled kitchen garden. There are flowers, shrubs,
trees, with fruits, herbs, vegetables, rhododendrons, and camellias of all kinds. Sarah
and Michael are kept very busy with their acreage, as something is always in bloom
throughout the long Devonshire growing season. At no time are the Stones made more busy
than at three times during the growing season when the gardens are open to the public. |
THE
STONES' IRIS GARDEN
AT CIDER HOUSE |
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THE STONES'
IRIS
"BOLD PRETENDER" |
Along
with 140 other Devon gardeners, Sarah and Michael are members of the National Gardens
Scheme. When The Cider House gardens are advertised as open to the public, the Stones can
expect a few hundred visitors poking about their historic property. They come to make
mental comparisons with other gardens in the county, to borrow ideas for their gardens at
home, and, most deliciously, to partake of Sarah's authentic Devonshire cream tea: fresh
scones, clotted cream, jam, tea, in an ideal setting. Profits from the admission charge
benefit various charities. Profiting from a visit to Michael and Sarah Stone's estate are
all guests looking to discover the simple joys of the
Devonshire
countryside. |
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