The Court Yard, Mersham-le-Hatch, Hythe Road, Ashford, Kent TN25 6NH
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We are located on the Mersham le Hatch Estate formerly owned by Lord Braebourne. We have been established for over 18 years & are owned by a local Farming Family.
Here, we’ve gained a reputation for offering both excellent locally sourced food and service – evolving from being a farm shop which ran a small café; to a popular restaurant (occasionally hosting weddings) and now, since the start of 2022, we’ve achieved our long term goal of becoming an exclusive Wedding & Events Venue.
We have grown exponentially over the past 3 years, and are extremely proud to be starting our new era as one of Kent’s leading Wedding & Events Venues. It’s been quite the adventure so far, and we are so excited to what is yet to come for the Garden.
Here at the Secret Garden, we love to celebrate love – no matter what that might look like for you. After all, that’s what its all about at the end of the day! We are dreamers, fun-loving and open to any suggestions you can throw at us as to what will make your day truly yours. We believe wholeheartedly that is the core of what makes a wedding day amazing for everyone; a celebration designed to fully embrace your love. And we mean your specific love; your journey that led you to be here with us, standing at the top of our aisle and making your commitments to one another.
There is no one size fits all to weddings – this is our primary ethos, and something the whole team feel very passionate about. From our Coordinators, to our Chefs and Bar Managers; we all understand how very personal your wedding day is to you and we are here to help guide you along your journey to create your magic together.
And, if we’re not looking like the right venue for you (perhaps you have a particular different style of catering in mind? Or need space for larger guest numbers?), take a look at our two sister venues:
Did you know that the average UK wedding produces THREE Olympic swimming pools’ worth of CO2? Ever since we discovered the impact our beloved industry was having on the environment, we’ve been dedicated to removing ourselves from that statistic.
We pride ourselves on our sustainability efforts within the industry – we’ve made lots of changes, big and small, in order to be as sustainable as possible throughout our venue, including:
Ordering our fresh produce from only local suppliers, all our alcohol from either local breweries/distilleries/wineries (or if not possible, buying through a local supplier), having our eggs exclusively supplied by the business owners local farm (and transported the 3.3 miles via electric van!) and supplying weddings with our own Secret Garden Confetti – grown, dried and pressed on the Farm too. We have our own onsite Fresh Herb & Vegetable Garden which is lovingly tended to by our kitchen porter, and supplies our weddings with a lot of their seasonal veg and fresh mint for their Pimm’s or Mojitos. We also have our own compost site for food waste too.
We have also created our unique Prop Hire service – we noticed that so many of our couples were all buying the same few items of decor for their weddings to follow the current trends; and then disposing of the items or being stuck with them with no idea what to do with them afterwards! Our Prop Hire service is an ever-growing collection of frequent decor items (such as card boxes, table runners, signage, table numbers etc.) available to our couples to hire for little to no cost. These items are sourced from local businesses, upcycled charity shop finds, and even bought from past couples post-wedding! Saving our couples from unnecessary extra spending, and keeping decorating your wedding renewable.
BRAND NEW FOR 2025 – we’ve launched our wedding tree project!
In partnership with the business owners local farms, in 2025 we will be planting a tree for every wedding we host. In one of three locations in Kent (Brabourne, Aldington or Whitstable), couples will then be provided with a photo and What3Words location of their wedding tree.
The Court Yard, Mersham-le-Hatch, Hythe Road, Ashford, Kent TN25 6NH