With a nod to our love of baking and baking programmes at the moment, I’d like to ask: What is the recipe for a great winter garden? I know a tried and tested set of ingredients that works every time, and here is my favourite…

To create a delightful slice of Sheffield Park and Garden:

Take a light frost with iced grass, glazed foliage and twinkling spiders’ webs.

Mix in mature trees with rugged twisted limbs and interesting flaking mottled barks.

Add a dash of evergreens, golden yellows, dark greens and lime greens to provide colour, warmth and texture.

Pour in crystal clear water in the form of lakes and ponds.

Sprinkle with a coating of snow to create a soft, sparkling white blanket Beneath the tree canopy add an under-story of shrubs and flowering bulbs (such as snowdrops).

Do not forget to put in birdsong, mammals, insects and fish.

Slow cook with a warm welcome under a clear blue sky.

Leave to stand on and off for hundreds of years and then enjoy with friends, family or, if the mood takes you, just by yourself. Instead of oven gloves, you may want to pop on hats, gloves, walking boots and warm winter wear.

Then set off across crisp crunchy grass at Sheffield Park and Garden to enjoy the glorious vistas, shapes and colours of this inspirational landscape.

And if all this talk of baking has made you a little hungry, you can head for home-made cakes and warming treats in our Coach House Tearoom. It’s the perfect way to start or finish a visit to Sheffield Park.

  • Sheffield Park and Garden, Sheffield Park, East Sussex, TN22 3QX, Tel: 01825 790231, www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sheffieldpark
  • Gardens, restaurant, shop and parkland open every day (except December 25)