The Rams Horn Secret Tea Garden

How tea works

• One hour at your own table, outside on the grassy mound or inside the cottage. There are 22 seats in all.
• Hot water is ready for you to serve yourself.
• Booking is by card, ahead of time. We carry no cash on site.
• Your confirmation brings a garden password for the gate.

A hamper for teatime

Tea for two, for example: gluten-free scones, individual clotted creams, lemon curds, strawberry rhubarb preserves, macarons, shortbread and Yorkshire tea.

Hamper choices will be listed here soon.

The story of the tea room

In the hot summer of 1934, the well-known educator Miss Anne Loomis Shepard, principal of Rockdale School, opened The Rams Horn: a high-class tea room with tables in the flower garden, beside the cottage where she lived. That cottage is now the TAJ ART INC Studio Gallery, and the trees still give shade for teatime. On July 6, 1934, the Eagle Rock Sentinel reported the opening.

Miss Shepard was of the lineage of John Wesley North, who founded the City of Riverside and worked with President Abraham Lincoln. Trace planted The Anne Loomis Shepard Rose Garden in her honor, and The Rams Horn Secret Tea Garden carries the tea room’s name today.

A garden with a life of its own

See the wildlife living among the English garden, the fruit trees and the meditation labyrinth, all designed by Trace Fryer. The large historic avocado tree shelters a vintage carved wooden veranda imported from the East, and the cottage craftsman buildings date from about 1920.

A few gentle house rules

• Tea is by reservation only.
• We carry no cash on site.
• Please be gentle with the garden and its animals. The garden is a wildlife sanctuary.