After a gap of 3 years, 28 garden club members enjoyed a 3 day visit to Cheshire, with the new RHS Bridgewater as our highlight.
On the way up, our 1st stop was The Botanic Garden of the University of Birmingham in Edgebaston, Winterbourne gds. The building is Grade 11 listed, and is one of the best surviving examples of an Edwardian Arts & Crafts suburban villa garden. It was lovingly created by the homeowners, Margaret and John Nettlefold, using the books of Gertrude Jekyll as a guide and inspiration. The last owner bequeathed the house and garden to the university, who still use it for teaching purposes and plant conservation.
We then made our way to the 3star Best Western in Altrincham, for a 2- night stay.
On day 2, the highlight of our tour was to visit the new RHS Bridgewater, so named after a nearby canal. This is one of the largest gardening projects in Europe, designed mainly by Tom Stuart Smith. The grounds were fascinating and very accessible to buggies etc. The garden opened to the public in May 2021, delayed by a year due to the pandemic, and work is still in progress. A visit in 2 or 3 year’s time will certainly be worth it, when all the planting will have been completed and the whole site looking more mature. Lot of our members made use of the lovely shop and garden centre, walking out heavily laden with bags. Our driver looked a bit dismayed, thinking “ where are we going to put all this?”
In the afternoon, we headed to Downham Massey, a NT property. It has a very elegant Georgian mansion, with beautiful interiors. It has sweeping lawns and over 1500 trees and shrubs, chosen for their scent, colour and texture. The highlight was a relatively new rose garden, opened in 2013. The scent as you entered the enclosure was quite exquisite.
After checking out on our final day, we made a short stop at Arley Hall. This is privately owned by Lord and Lady Ashbrook, and their forebearers have lived there since the 15 century. The head gardener gave us a guided tour of part of the 8 acre garden, which has been created over the last 250 years. According to Chris Beardshaw, the jewel in the crown are the herbaceous borders. They are the finest examples of horticultural art to be seen anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, we had to move on to our next destination, otherwise we would have loved to have spent more time here. The favourite garden by many of our members.
So on to our last garden. The driver took us across the very scenic Derby Dales to Hardwick Hall , a NT property. Hardwick is the home of one of the finest herb gardens in the country. It has a spectacular Elizabethan house built by Bess Hardwick in the late 1500’s. Hardwick Hall is known to have more glass than wall. It also houses the finest collections of Elizabethan tapestries and embroideries in Europe. After cups of tea, scones and ice cream, we headed back to our coach after considering ourselves lucky that the weather was kind to us throughout our tour.
There was 1 final stop, and that was to have a pub meal at the Woolpack Inn, near Thrapston. The food was all prebooked and the staff were amazing and very efficient. They did us proud. Everyone enjoyed what they had ordered, so it was a good ending to our tour.
Hanna Roberts
