Stephen Cox Garden Trust

Residential Student Placements 2026

Various candidates have been accepted for placements including from: France, Spain, Japan, France, Netherlands, Germany.

(Since 2011 the Trust has hosted students from many countries including: Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Finland,  Denmark, Norway, Austria, Sweden, Ireland, Poland, Hungary, Netherlands, Belgium, Czechia, Romania, Greece, U.S.A, South Korea, Japan)

Introduction: 

The horticulture and conservation charity is a place of wildlife,  education, peaceful repose and harmony. 

It is a symbol of 'Arcadia':  harmony with Nature and the landscape,  respecting wildlife where gardening can encourage high principles and values for living and society.

The garden helped inspire the ethos and mission of the charity and the ongoing garden maintenance and development now  triggers its programmes of education, conservation, and publishing.

Making it was an exhausting labour of love by its maker (who is retired and lives in seclusion), created 10 or so years single handed from a small field, including design and installation of all the features, walls, arches, waterfalls, pond, hedges, patios, plant collections. The result?  A garden of rooms to "delight the eye, gladden the heart, enrich the mind and uplift the soul".

He says:  "I am sometimes asked if this garden is finished- I reply "NO!"  taking the view  that if you think you have fnished your garden, then you are ready to die! There should always be more to do, new adventures, challenges. And that is a principle to which I daily try to adhere. To wake up each morning with excitement as to what one can achieve with a whole new day!

Garden and life should have purpose, goals and hopes but contributing elements or sections should not be carved in stone: be prepared to experiment, to re-arrange, or even start again. Give scope to your sense of curiosity and adventure.

And the future?  It is unclear how long I have considering restrictions of living on a state pension and contending with poor health and a range of debilitating mental and physical afflictions, but I intend to try and keep gardening, writing,  creating and public service 'til my very last hour of life and . And to find sponsorship so that the garden and the charity I have created can have its own base and live on after me for others to enjoy and learn from.

Those to whom I am grateful (who have always been sympathetic both of the garden and the charity) know who they are.

If one is lucky enough to do, learn, create, or achieve something then it is only fully realised if it also enriches others. And that no matter how great or humble our station in life we all have the capacity -and indeed the duty- of 'noblesse oblige'."

 Stephen         Ego partum Arcadia

What The Trust Does

As a registered charity, the Trust fulfills its charitable mission and objectives in a variety of ways including, but not restricted to, the following:

●Education: horticulture and conservation.

●Maintain & develop its unusual conservation garden, plant collections and landscaping.

●Maintain & develop its unique gardening library and research documents archive.
●Information sheets wildlife & conservation.
●Conservation research.
●E.U. residential placements.
●Websites
●Conservation remote posts UK universities.
●Videos on: conservation, gardening, art history.
●Book publishing on: conservation, gardening, well-being.

Please Note:

(i) The Trust has no income other than donations. Trustees & staff work unpaid.

(ii) The garden is not open to the public.

(iii) Due to various physical ailments and mental health debilitation the Founder (who is retired) has had to cut back on all activities and is semi-reclusive. 

If you would like to apply for any of the Trust's opportunities or wish to support its work then please use the enquiry form below.

(Only enquiries dealing directly about the work of Trust after 2017 will receive a reply. No personal correspondece will ne entered into).

Enquiry Form

If you want to study/volunteer/link with the Trust or support/sponsor an aspect of it's work please fill in this form. (Only enquiries dealing directly with the work of Trust after 2016 will receive a reply. No personal correspondece will ne entered into).