 The gardens also include a kitchen garden and tropical garden, an informal water garden to the north with "Lake Patricia" installed in the 1960s, extensive collections of dahlias and echinops, a jungle garden, and an avenue of holm oaks.The gardens took several years to recover from seawater flooding after Cyclone Xaver caused a tidal surge on the River Stour on 6 December 2013.Henry Farrer, son of solicitor Sir William Farrer, commissioned Sir Edwin Lutyens to design and built the house in 1911–12.