Originally, Knoll Cottage was a thatched farmer's barn built of stone, of indeterminate age. It was tiled in 1988 and sold off for conversion to a dwelling, together with 4 acres of land. The purchasers who carried out the conversion wanted the land primarily for grazing for horses. They divided the land into three - two large paddocks and a small garden area. The garden area was slightly terraced, but contained very little planting.

Due to ill health the owners had to give up their own horses, but rented the paddocks for grazing by ponies. They also put it on the market. We saw it the summer of 1996 and bought it, but couldn't move in until the summer of 1997. Although we wanted to make a garden we took several months deciding what to do, such that we didn't start any significant work until the spring of 1998.

The major work was getting rid of the terrace and smoothing the contours. Initially, we only included about an acre in the garden. The ponies remained on the rest. Over the years we have steadily increased the garden area, the ponies were replaced by sheep and chickens for some years. Now the whole four acres is "garden", though an acre is devoted to an ash coppice (planted in autumn 2009), and nearly an acre is left with just rough grass and a a few trees.