91 Magazine | Creative Spaces

Polly Nicholson’s walled garden and florist’s studio is a characterful floral paradise.

Some of Polly Nicholson’s earliest memories recall days as a small child exploring her parents’ garden with wonder – searching for wild flowers, taking in their scent, and being transfixed by the beautiful blooms she discovered there. ‘Apparently I’ve always been seen with flowers’, she says, ‘I was obsessed from an early age – my family simply don’t know where the trait came from!’ This fascination continues today, as Polly passionately pursues her lifelong dream of running a creative floristry business.

Polly’s interests initially led her into a career as an antiquarian book expert at Sotheby’s, where she came to specialise in gardening and cookery books. A decade ago, following a year’s horticultural training at the renowned Chelsea Physic Garden, she set to work on establishing her own artisan flower growing and floristry company.

At the time, Polly and her family had recently completed a long-planned move from London to the Wiltshire countryside. The discovery of their rural home-to-be had sealed the deal - its walled gardens, eighteenth-century stables, and original Victorian conservatory were ideal for Polly’s plans, and here Bayntun Flowers was born.

Next door to the family home, located in half of the old coach house stables (the other half still occupied by horses), Polly’s workshop opens onto the magical walled gardens. ‘The flow of space allows me to constantly move to and from the garden,’ says Polly, ‘I live in and out of here all week, and it’s wonderful in ...