The notebook listing the planting at Ickworth. © Martha Roberts

A mystery notebook packed full of unique garden history has been found buried at the back of a garden shed at the National Trust's Ickworth estate in Suffolk.

Head Gardener Sean Reid and his team are busily piecing together a fuller picture of what Ickworth's gardens used to look like with the help of the artefact, before work starts to reinstate some of the site's original elements.

Sean Reid with the notebook in the walled garden. © Chris Calnan

"This is just the most fantastic find for us, I really can't describe what it feels like to have stumbled across this piece of Ickworth's history,” said Reid.

"Any gardener would kill for this kind of information. It's amazing to think it's just been sitting there all these years."