AN AWARD-WINNING Worcestershire garden will be offering a touch of romance and magic over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

The owners and gardening enthusiasts Pam and Alistair Thompson, who are part of the National Gardens Scheme (NGS), are inviting visitors to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy their twilight garden event - Garden By Candlelight evening.

The south-west facing garden at the Grade II listed Pear Tree Cottage, Wichenford, near Martley, which extends to three quarters of an acre, will be lit by lanterns, scores of candles and up-lighting from 6pm to 10 pm on Bank Holiday Monday August 31.They also have a down-lit well with an original Worcester-made “Pumpy” Thomas pump.

Pam said visitors can wander around with a glass of wine and delight in the scents and sounds of a rural garden with a bit of wildlife.

“We have bats people can watch and our owls are very vocal. They are tawny owls and we call them Mr and Mrs Hooty,” said Pam – a former West Mercia police officer.

The couple, who have lived at Wichenford for 11 years, held their first Garden by Candlelight evening last year but it was a complete washout due to bad weather.

However 67-year-old Pam said she is hoping it will be a one of the few balmy nights of this summer on Bank Holiday Monday so visitors can see their garden in a different light.

The garden is known for its collection of quirky features including an old fashioned red telephone box – complete with working Bakelite phone – its animal shaped oil tank sculptures, a marine salvaged old buoy, a stone cairn monument marking the 70th anniversary of VE Day and many many more.

This year the lovingly tended garden won a silver medal in the Britain’s Best Gardener’s Garden 2015 competition run by English Garden Magazine.

“I subscribe to two gardening magazines and one is English Garden Magazine. I happened to see the competition advertised and they just wanted a few pictures so I entered and forgot about it. Then I got an e-mail saying we were in the finals.”

To Pam’s delight she ended up with a new lawn mower as the competition sponsor was a lawn mower manufacturer Cobra. It was perfect timing as she said the old lawn mower, which had done a lot of work, was getting past its sell by date.

Most of the unusual garden features are down to Pam. “I always have ideas. That’s the problem. I have too many ideas,” she said.

While a lot of the hard graft is down to her trusty gardener Chris Pugh who is also a trained in forestry.

“He loves this garden like his own. He is a really caring lad which is pretty rare in this day and age. Absolutely nothing fazes him, no matter how mammoth the project is, and there have been plenty over the years!”

To find out more about the garden at Pear Tree Cottage visit http://www.peartreecottage.me/

• Admission to the Garden by Candlelight evening is £4.50 which includes a glass of wine and there will also be home-made cakes available. Proceeds go to the NGS, which has donated more than £22million to charities including Macmillan Cancer Support and Marie Curie Cancer Care in the past 10 years.