Henry Avray Tipping (1855-1933) was a wealthy architectural historian and garden designer. As Architectural Editor of Country Life he made it essential reading for everyone interested in Britain's great country houses, their furnishings and their gardens. Tipping restored a bishop's palace for himself and his mother, built one of the last important country houses in which to entertain the Edwardian great and good, and, after the First World War, commissioned his ideal 'cottage'. Always the garden came first; each was a perfect Edwardian idyll. As a fine gardener herself, the author describes Tipping's own Monmouthshire gardens at Mathern Palace, Mounton House and her own High Glanau Manor, as well as gardens he designed for others, notably at Chequers and Dartington Hall. Tipping, who had no family of his own, was central to the lives and work of such distinguished garden designers as Robinson, Jekyll and Peto.