"For Half a Century the Gardens at Aberglasney were left to decay. The Japanese knotweed - imported as a Victorian exotic - grew taller than a man, the yew and box ran wild, and ivy roots grew fat in the ancient stonework of the massive walls. The gardens all but disappeared beneath a shroud of green." "Visitors forcing their way through this jungle noticed the unusual layout, and as word spread the importance of the site was acknowledged and - at last - an ambitious plan of restoration was put in hand. What those early visitors had seen were the raised, arcaded terrace walkways of an ancient garden. As the experts moved in and restoration began the questions provoked by the unfolding evidence became more startling still: was this the only survivor of a Renaissance plan in Britain, overlying a medieval garden? The mysterious and venerable yew tunnel was believed by some to be 1,000 years old, by others just 700." "The nine gardens of Aberglasney were first mentioned by a fifteenth-century bard. This is the story of their fate under a succession of owners, whose varying fortunes brought fashionable changes at one moment and fateful neglect at another, culminating in a spiral of decline from which the rescue of the 1990s emerged as no less than miraculous."--BOOK JACKET.