The National Trust is set to rip up artificial grass at the historic Cliveden Estate in south Buckinghamshire and lay down a new stone path in its place.

The charity, which cares for the Grade I listed 300-year-old country house and its grounds in Taplow, proposed the work in a new application for planning permission submitted to Buckinghamshire Council.

The central path of Cliveden’s Long Garden, which receives 500,000 visitors a year, is made from artificial grass, however the Trust’s policy is to remove all fake turf from its properties by 2025.

Meanwhile, the planting beside the path, which runs parallel to Bourne End Road, is currently being redesigned, before the new landscaping work is carried out in Autumn 2025.

The Trust said: “Whilst an important feature both aesthetically and functionally, the path will play a supporting, subservient role to the existing topiary and new planting.

“It will run centrally through the Long Garden. From a design perspective, it is essential that the new softscaping work being planted later this year and the new garden path work seamlessly together.”

The charity explained that Cliveden’s ‘historic setting’ required ‘traditional materials in keeping with the existing palette’ of the property.

It said that ‘Apperley antique paving’ had been chosen for the new path and would be laid in a ‘random coursed pattern’.

Made from an indigenous York stone, the material has an ‘aged appearance’ and has already been used historically elsewhere at Cliveden.

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