A new home with a large garden is a rare and precious thing. Helen Geraghty found a private, gated development with plenty of outdoor space to call your own.

Electric gates swing open and, away to the left, a game of tennis is under way on a newly-finished court with smart brick pavilion.

To the right, on this former farm just outside East Malling, decorators are finishing work on one of three pristine oasthouse roundels, part of a row of three new homes built around the traditional hop-drying building.

Ahead is the impressive show home, built using the structure of the former farmhouse that was once the centre of this little self-contained rural world.

And away beyond, four more homes, all new but built in a barn conversion style, with high cart doors, looking a bit like a model farmyard. Except here there is no mud, no silage pit, no rusting machinery; just lots of green grass, laid like a clean green duvet. And lots of newly laid stone block paving.

One of these farmyard homes, plot seven, the detached five-bedroom Ightham, is on a south-facing plot, which at not far short of an acre gives it the largest garden on the site.

And it isn't the hard-to-use sloping ground I had unkindly expected. This is flat. As a pancake. There is no flood-threatening stream to make it unusable. There is no protected "copse" to thwart your plans. This is a huge, blank empty, uncultured lump of land stretching into the distance to a line of high poplars, waving in the wind. No ifs, no buts. Get on with it.

On the market for £875,000, it has the must-have kitchen/breakfast room and a master bedroom with an en suite with bath and shower. Not to mention an en suite dressing room with a proper window.

I can't help feeling that half an hour south or west you could be paying almost £1.5 million for a home like this.

In the hallway, I bump into Hillreed Homes managing director Colin Creed, who is checking the finishing touches to the Ightham. Founder of the company, with Tony Hillier in 1975 (see where they got the name?), he is still heavily involved in day-to-day design.

He said the layout of the eight-home site, Oast Court Farm, was determined to an extent by the location of an existing main farmhouse, oasthouse and farm buildings of this piece of land, once known as Heath Farm. Working with council planning limits, the gardens and farmyard style layout sprang from this.

Colin said: "We are really proud of this development. It is a bit of a one-off, a bit of a departure from the norm. It has a private gated location, with a lovely aspect, and all in all it has a unique feel."

At the showhome, the Wateringbury, on the market for £750,000, the best bits of the old farmhouse have been kept and improved with a complete refurbishment and re-shape.

Three original long vertical rising windows bring lots of light into the hallway and stairwell.

The 24ft by 22ft living room has an inglenook fireplace with wood-burning stove, and there is a study and a large traditional dining room, from where you can see the tennis court.

The kitchen has a Rangemaster range-style cooker, integrated Miele dishwasher and microwave and granite worktops. There is a separate utility room. The whole ground floor has underfloor heating, and double-glazed windows are timber framed.

There are four bedrooms and a family bathroom, and the master bedroom has a walk-in wardrobe as well as an en suite.

This show home is, of course, new-home perfect, but with an older property feel, due to its history.

The large garden, this being the pampered show home, has been landscaped, so you could move straight in and put your feet up in your deck chair, next to your clipped box topiary and your Tasmanian tree fern.

But look out for me. That might be me double-digging, knee deep in mud, over at plot seven.

Oast Court Farm was launched earlier this month with a tennis match featuring former British No 1 tennis player and TV presenter Andrew Castle. The tennis court is for the private use of residents. For more information on the development ring Hillreed Homes on 01622 813385 or 01622 626800. Site sales office and show home are open seven days a week. Mondays 1pm to 5pm, Tuesdays to Sundays 10am to 5pm.

Other plots for sale include the semi-detached four-bedroom Farleigh, for £585,000 and the semi-detached four-bedroom Malling, for £575,000. The Offham, with three roundels, has five bedrooms and is £900,000.

More details at www.hillreed.co.uk