One of Herefordshire's most iconic gardens - and the Arts and Crafts house at its centre - has just come on to the market with a guide price of £1.4million.

Designed in 1911 by Hereford architects Groome and Bettington for a pair of sisters, Elizabeth and Molly Durning-Holt, heiresses to one of the UK's larger shipping companies, Blue Funnel Line of Liverpool, it's said that some of the architectural details in the house were done by carpenters from the shipping line.

Bryan’s Ground overlooks the river into Wales and was built between 1911–13, when it was graced with a three-acre formal garden comprising several of the period’s Arts and Crafts signature components: sunken garden with circular water-lily pool and four surrounding

flower beds, nascent yew and box topiary, a lengthy pergola for roses and the obligatory country-house tennis court and a three-quarter-acre kitchen garden, walled on two sides, a large greenhouse and the Lighthouse in which gas was made for domestic lighting.

By 1993 the grounds had all but been abandoned, but since then the garden has been transformed into one of the country's best known and best loved . Since then among many other improvements it has been rewired, a new heating system installed, the Motor House converted and the Drawing Room extended. It was the garden however that was transformed and is now regarded as “one of the most important and enchanting of modern gardens.”

Until recently these have been open to the public on a regular basis.

The canal, replacing the old drive which has been moved to one side, is aligned on the dining room window.

The panelled entrance hall leads through double doors to the elegant hall. Parquet floors are mainly throughout the ground floor.

Both the Drawing and Sitting Room enjoy views down the Cuckoo Walk and rose garden, whilst the Library with its ornate moulded ceiling steps out directly on to the southfacing terrace and loggia overlooking the sunken garden.

Behind the “green baize door “ is the former kitchen, now dining room, opposite the present kitchen/ breakfast room.

Beyond the back stairs the glazed porch acts as an excellent boot room and out into a small courtyard off which are the former tea rooms.

On the first floor there are five bedrooms and three bathrooms (one ensuite) all off a wide long landing with fitted bookshelves.

At the far end the back staircase continues to the second floor where there are five further rooms, a bathroom and a landing large enough at one time to be a classroom

The Motor House was converted some ten years ago. Close to the entrance and keeping its external features, it is a subtle conversion with a large living room/ dining room with a pair of French doors out into the garden and two bedrooms, one with an ensuite bathroom and a kitchen also with French doors. Upstairs there is consent to create a further bedroom and bathroom (plumbing and electrics in place).

The gardens - ‘one of the most important (and enchanting) of modern gardens' declared the Royal Horticultural Society - occupy some thirty acres of cherished pastoral land on the border between England and Wales, with meadows to the south and low protecting hills to the north.

When the house was built, it was graced with a three-acre formal garden comprising several of the period’s Arts and Crafts signature components: sunken garden with circular water-lily pool and four surrounding flower beds, nascent yew and box topiary, a lengthy pergola for roses and the obligatory country-house tennis court. Today it is 'furnished with follies and fragrant flowers, towers and topiary, pools and a potager, and paths to five acres of specimen trees on the banks of a river'.

The arboretum has been created by David Wheeler and features more than 700 specimen trees and shrubs. The garden itself is divided into more formal garden rooms: "It's chiefly Simon (Dorrell's) design – its unity and complexity. It's like a Swiss watch _ it has so many bits but they all link together and function beautifully."

"This is my kind of garden," said Monty Don.

Bryan's Ground is on the market with Bengough Property (bengoughproperty.com) with a guide price of £1.4 million.