Modern heroes of horticulture - Tamsin Westhorpe
Take a little bit of Gerald Durrell, a pinch of Felicity Kendall from the Good Life, and a slice of Mini the Minx, and you’ll have a good idea of Tamsin Westhorpe’s childhood. Tamsin is an accomplished horticulturist who looks after well known Stockton Bury Gardens near Leominster, alongside her uncle Raymond. With its medieval pigeon house, kitchen garden, water gardens and well-planted borders, it’s a garden for both the experienced plantsperson and keen new gardener alike.
Throughout her varied career in horticulture, Tamsin has embraced opportunities in a range of diverse roles, including park’s greenkeeper, interior landscaper, lecturer, shopkeeper, and a role she is perhaps best known for, editor of The English Garden magazine. She serves as a judge at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and her mission centres on making gardening more accessible to all, drawing from her extensive experience to inspire others to pursue careers in horticulture.
From a snail-collecting child, to magazine editor, her horticultural journey combines childhood wonder, unexpected career turns, and a consistent willingness to embrace the unknown. Memories of great-aunt Margie’s wonderfully chaotic Bournemouth garden - complete with old Wellington boots repurposed as planters - was quite a stark contrast to the manicured grounds of her boarding school upbringing.
Tamsin’s path into horticulture wasn't sparked by a single dramatic moment but rather evolved over time. After a brief stint at art college pursuing sculpture, family connections led her to work with her great uncle John Treasure, a Clematis breeder at Burford House, Shropshire. What started as a temporary arrangement to keep a young person occupied turned into the foundation of her career.
A reluctant enrollment at Sparsholt College - initially choosing the shortest possible course, interior landscaping - led to a love of education and a further year studying decorative horticulture. This included a year’s work placement in the Bournemouth parks department. Here, she learned the unglamorous reality of horticulture - early mornings, litter collection, and the vital but often invisible work of maintaining public spaces.
Her career then took an unexpected turn into media. Starting as a box-unpacker at a gardening magazine, she gradually worked her way up, even making appearances on television. She opened a shop in Wimborne where her knowledge was spotted and she accepted, despite initial self-doubt, to teach 75 horticulture students. The teaching was a success, though the shop turned out to be a short-lived project. Tamsin soon landed a position at Amateur Gardening magazine where she discovered a love for the intense pace of weekly publishing. Her position as editor at Cheltenham based ‘The English Garden’ followed, a role that she held for seven years between 2007 and 2014.
After the success of her 2020 publication ‘A Diary of a Modern Country Gardener’, Tamsin was commissioned to write her latest work, ‘Grasping the Nettle: Tales from a Modern Country Gardener’ with her publisher, Orphan, saying “Tamsin’s delightfully funny memoir of making a living with mud permanently under her fingernails will delight any reader. A cast of colourful characters pepper the pages of her hapless horticultural exploits, which range from dispensing gnome-placement advice on live TV to how to deal with nudist neighbours or the inside scoop on why the roses surrounding the beautifully manicured English lawn bowling greens grow quite so vigorously”.
Now in 2025, Tamsin’s work is centred on running the gardens at Stockton Bury, a diverse role that can find her running workshops, giving tours, or working on café menus as well as plenty of real hands-on gardening. Open from the 3rd of April to the 29th of September a visitor packed siz months requires the bulk of the gardening work to be carried out in the visitor free winter months. Tamsin is on Instagram under her own name and more details of the Stockton Bury Gardens can be found at http://www.stocktonbury.co.uk
