Seaford garden used for Channel 4 location filming.

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Geoff Stonebanks’s stunning seaside garden, Driftwood, in Bishopstone, Seaford is well versed in experiencing television cameras recording its delights.

Over the years the plot has featured twice on BBC Gardeners’ World, been live, as part on ITV’s Good Morning Britain and featured many times on BBC SE Today and a couple of times on ITV Meridian.

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This month though Geoff was taken by surprise when a film production company approached him, prepared to pay to use the garden for location filming for a brand-new, upcoming programme on C4 in 2025.

However, by mid to late September, Geoff is already starting to put his garden to bed for the winter. The plot contains so many delicate plants that require frost free protection in the heated greenhouse, that, coupled with packing away all his precious objets d’art into the summer house until next Spring, the garden takes on a very different look. Work had already begun on cutting back plants and removing summer annuals that had finished too.

Geoff and presenter Luke after filming.Geoff and presenter Luke after filming.
Geoff and presenter Luke after filming.

Imagine Geoff’s surprise to then be approached by a producer, looking to use his garden in mid-October, for location filming. The team were working on a new property series for Channel 4 to be aired early in 2025. The format sees homeowners wanting to transform their kitchens and gardens. Will they choose a new kitchen or a newly designed garden?

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As part of the programme the team planned to visit beautiful and unique gardens where they gather inspiration to incorporate into the chosen garden designs for the homeowners. The team said that through their research they had found Driftwood and thought it would be perfect inspiration for a seaside garden that is being designed. They wanted to know if he would consider allowing them to film mid-October?

Geoff’s initial reaction was to say decline, as he felt his garden was far from its best and all the summer décor and tender plants already put away for the winter. That said the production company were clearly very keen, so asked Geoff to send over a short film of the garden as it looked at present.

A three-minute film was shot and sent over, which sealed the deal, as the team thought it still looked magnificent. More importantly they were offering a generous location filming fee too, which Geoff has generously donated to his 2024 fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support.

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Filming in the beach garden.Filming in the beach garden.
Filming in the beach garden.

In the run up to filming Geoff did retrieve some of the garden furniture and plants from their winter homes to dress the garden, so it looked the very best it could and then had to pack them all away again straight after filming.

So, on Friday, October 11, the film crew of Scott and Tony arrived along with a presenter, Luke. The weather was amazing, although quite chilly, it was a beautiful autumnal day with the sun shining throughout. The crew were very impressed with the garden, as it generated some fabulous ideas for them to introduce into the seaside garden being designed as part of the programme. They spent three hours across both the back and front gardens taking away many ideas.

The four-part series is scheduled to air early next year on C4 so watch out for the episode on a seaside garden. Check Geoff’s garden website at www.driftwoodbysea.co.uk

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