| Page 3, 2004 Tour 2004 England Garden Tour with Penelope Hobhouse click on the link at the bottom of the page for the 2005-06 Tours |
| Wallington: Landscaped by the Blackett Family by Capability Brown, who was born nearby at Kirkharle and began his illustrious career locally. Large sheltered walled garden, admirable architectural bridge over river. Large stone grotesque dragon's heads on lawn, taken from Bishopsgate, London. A team of 6 Gardeners take care of the garden areas comprising 65 acres. The overall plan is of 18th century origin which combined open spaces with vistas of distant trees. A splendid Lime Tree Avenue had been taken out for reseeding and then will be planted with new trees in the autumn of 2005. Graham Stuart Thomas was the Designer of the walled garden of 4 acres of ornamental plantings. I particularly liked the use of New Zealand Flax with acanthus lettisfolius shown below. Millerstain: The house stands in beautiful parkland. The Italian styled terrace Gardens were laid out in 1909 by Sir Reginald Blomfield and command a glorious view overlooking the lake to the Cheviot Hills in the distance. Owned by the Duke of Haddington who invited us in for refreshments. The House was begun in 1725 by William Adam, and completed by his famous son, Robert, between 1770 and 1778. The interior decoration is outstanding. The ceilings especially worthy of note, having been preserved in their original Adam colours. The Library is a masterpiece of Classical decoration and colour with fine detail plasterwork incorporating marble busts by Roubiliac. Mellerstain houses a superb collection of paintings includeing works by Van Dyck, Gainsborough, Ramsey, Aitken and Nasmyth and many lovely pieces of period furniture. |
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| The photograph above highlights the border of the terrace gardens. Borders are a great discipline and much more complicated then they look. I love the sweeps of plantings, but prefer Gertrude Jeyklls "symphony" of colours Across from this border was another which consisted of Japanese Anemone "Honarine Jobert" with "munstead blue" lavendar and white roses. " Softness with tides of light to give shadows". Mertoun: A 26 acre garden going back to the early 18th century on a high bank overlooking Tweed. Walled garden of another three acres. Excellent herbaceous borders and roses, with well stocked arboretum estalished over the last 25 years, of particular interest to planters of today. Owner, Duke of Sutherland. The photograph below shows the broad sweeping vistas across the walled garden. |
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| Alnwick Castle Gardens continued: The Ornamental Garden featured in the photograph to the right is surounded by walls built in 1777 and was the Castle's original Kitchen Garden. Now this Garden features very European plantings, such as pleached Red Sentinal mock crab apples fixed to bamboo framework. First time this has ever been done and the result is outstanding! The Garden is designed as a series of 'rooms'. An example of this are the areas formed by Cornus Mas hedging which enclosed different European varieties of Cream coloured Hydrangeas. The Hydrangeas wil be allowed to grow above the level of clipped hedges to create a shaped 'ceiling over the room'. |
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| The Source Pool in the center of the photograph is constructed with Flemish bricks and blue limestone coping from Kilkenny in Ireland. The raised pool detail has an Islamic influence and is the highest point in the garden. The bricks match the bricks within the garden walls which were transported to Alnwick during the 18th century as ballast on ships returning from Europe. The water disturbance in this pool is created by flap valves releasing air which in turn forms bubbles rising to the surface. |
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| The Rose Garden 2500 English shrub roses planted to date and sponsored by David Austin Roses. The rose Alnwick Castle launched at Chelsea Flower Show in 2001 is a lovely pink with a definite raspberry scent. Roses were planted both sides of arbors and on corners of pathways. The entire Pergola is planted with climbing roses, clematis and honeysuckle. I was completely enthralled with the design layout. The use of pergolas in combination with arbors was delightful. I was also excited to see so many specimen clematis vines reaching upwards and overhead through the roses. |
| All materials copyrighted by www.gardengoddess.net 2003-06. All rights reserved. Music this page: shee beg shee mor by Thurlough O'Carolyn, celtic harpist, Robert Hart All images and photographs of county wide Litchfield Gardens are the sole copyrighted materials of The Garden Goddess. England Garden Tour 2004 Page 3 |
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