View of a highly manicured Great Plat from the northeast with the planted Pergola apparent background, 1906. Photo by Ivo Richard Vesey (1881-1958), 5th Viscount de Vesci.

At the time of his death on the 27 April 1911, aged 54, E.W.B. Portman could call upon at least eleven gardeners to maintain his gardens at Hestercombe, most of whom were young, unmarried and living in the Gardener's Lodge, later the Bothy, which was situated a short distance to the south of the Formal Garden alongside the estate’s walled kitchen garden. The Head Gardener, Mr. Albert Hubbard resided nearby in the six-room Gardener’s Cottage, which is still extant just off Hestercombe Road.