Walled Kitchen Gardens

Comment by vegman on August 17, 2010 at 17:21

I haven't been able to explore that many walled kitchen gardens, but l have been to Heligan twice! I just love this place and remember my first visit when we were sat in the kitchen garden area watching a man bent over harvesting potatoes. I wouldn't have batted an eye lid if an Edwardian woman in a very long dress walked past at that very moment. Timeless!

Comment by Ryan Carson on August 17, 2010 at 20:12

We went to Tyntesfield and it was a wonderful walled kitchen garden. Highly recommended!

Comment by Gillian Carson on August 17, 2010 at 20:44

Our house is right next to a disused Victorian walled kitchen garden. It's like torture!

Comment by vegman on August 17, 2010 at 20:53

Oh wow! I wonder if the owners would let it be restored like Heligan? Maybe the Landshare group could do something? Thank you for your hard work in getting this site off the ground both of you. I am sure it will go from strength to strength!

Comment by Ryan Carson on August 17, 2010 at 21:02

Ah, thanks. It's all Gill. I'm just here to give support :)

Comment by Gill Blease on September 15, 2010 at 10:23

I went to an amazing walled garden last weekend at Norton Priory, near Runcorn in Cheshire. It was vast and still has a large and very productive fruit/veg area, with a cutting garden. Also an orchard and the National quince collection. It had a very relaxed informal feel (prob because very few staff and everything had self seeded and grown slightly wild). Really beautiful. They said this year they hadn't had any of the usual rabbit problems because they now have a family of stoats! if anyone is in the area i'd absolutely recommend it. You can spend hours there.

Gill - who owns the walled garden next to you? - how can you stand it!? Renovating an old kitchen garden is probably my biggest daydream.

Comment by Jan Willetts on September 25, 2010 at 13:22

Just reading about a place near Bath, called Ston Easton Park, Somerset which has a walled garden that provides veg fruit and flowers for "the big house" which is now a hotel. There are three Victorian glasshouses as well, where one of their more exotic fruits is the loofah! They work with the hotel chef to choose some interesting veg and it is open to the public daily, along with 60 acres of grounds. The restaurant sounds fab too, will put it on my wish list of places to go.

Comment by Rob Duffin on October 8, 2010 at 20:46

I do love walled gardens. It's great when you get to hear the history behind them as well. Another vote for the Lost Gardens of Heligan here too, which is probably partly due to the story behind them too. However, that's a bit of a trek for us to get to, so nearer to home Clumber Park is quite nice too, gradually being restored.

Comment by Dave Mercer on November 14, 2010 at 23:35

I am currently restoring a 2.5 acre walled garden from 24 years of neglect - on one day a week, whereas there was a full time gardener before that and between the wars there were 6 gardeners. The garden will eventually have a large fruit bed, large veg area, cutting beds, shrub walk, orchard, rose bed, two long flower borders, two small beds planted up with a massive collection of year round bulbs, possibly a stumpery and as many other features as I can persuade the owners to include. At the moment I have sorted out all the roses and fruit trees that are against the south facing and west facing walls, dug over, weeded (three times each) and started planting bulbs, herbaceous perrenials and shrubs in the two long borders (each 4m wide by 40m long) pruned all the other apple trees in the garden (found 15 so far - and when I say found that will give you an idea of how overgrown a garden can get if the gate hasn't been opened in 24 years) cleared about an acre of scrub, cut down a large number of ash and sycamore trees (all 24 years old and approx 50ft in height), dug over and prepared the rose bed for the bare root roses due to arrive any day now and planted hundreds of bulbs in the two small beds on either side of the old summerhouse. I hope to start a blog for this project in January so will keep you all posted.

Comment by Dave Mercer on February 21, 2011 at 23:47

http://scotsburngarden.blogspot.com

Here is the blog address for the walled garden reclamation that I undertake one day a week (10 year project)

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