Glorious Gardens

Painswick Rococo Garden, in Gloucestershire is England’s sole surviving Rococo Garden, created as a place of fun, frolics and frippery, far away from local prying eyes, hidden within the hills. It also has a unique collection of garden buildings, including the Red House, Eagle House, Pigeon House, Gothic Alcove and for that fashionable 18th century past-time, a Cold Bath. All of this surrounds the central feature of a diamond-shaped organically run vegetable garden, which has supplied produce for the cafe on site. It seems unbelievable now that as recently as the 1970s this hidden gem was a forgotten jungle, partially planted with timber in the 1950s, with the dilapidated buildings sliding down the hillside. Its rescue is thanks to years of painstaking work by Lord and Lady Dickinson and their team of staff and volunteers; clearing the undergrowth to allow flowers to bloom, restoring the buildings and replanting the garden with historically accurate varieties before gifting it to current owners, the Painswick Rococco Garden Trust.

Alexandra Palace Park in London is very special to me and I adore it for its gorgeous views over London, vast open spaces, and hidden corners despite being right in the metropolis. As a child I visited every day to use its One O’Clock Club playgroup and iconic Brutalist playground; now I have my own family and still live nearby so it’s the destination for simple days out and rendezvous with other local friends. Built by the Victorians as a People’s Palace to rival Crystal Palace, it’s now run by a community trust who balance income-generation from events and hiring it out to fund public access to the palace and its park. 

Painshill Park in Surrey is another of my favourites, a uniquely-surviving 18th century circuit garden with eccentric follies – a crystal grotto, Roman temple, gothic tower, romantic ruins, exotic Turkish tent, thatched Hermitage, and a series of picturesque bridges - that play games with the imagination, through variety, mood shifts and concealment. After falling into disrepair as so many ambitious gardens do, Painshill has been restored over recent decades by a team of dedicated volunteers, and championed by the Garden History Society, the predecessor to the Gardens Trust. We continue to lend a supportive arm to Painshill when needed, such as in 2018 when it was threatened by proposals to expand the busy A3 road that would result in it virtually skimming the gothic tower.

Sir Frederick and Lady Stern spent 50 years turning this almost impossible site with its steep chalk cliffs and poor thin soil into a unique collection of trees, shrubs, perennial and bulbs, many of them the original stock obtained from pioneering botanists and collectors. The Gardens even have their own rose, bred by Sir Frederick: ‘Rosa x Highdownensis’, with flowers of cerise-crimson. Worthing Borough Council inherited Highdown Gardens under the terms of Sir Frederick’s will in 1967 and with the support of The Sussex Gardens Trust has recently  been awarded a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund that will both help save the hundreds of rare and exotic plants through expert cataloguing, preserving and propagating, and improve visitor experience.

Sally Bate, Historic Landscape Project Officer at the Gardens Trust, and Vice-Chair of Norfolk Gardens Trust

The Plantation Garden, Norwich has been cleared and cared for by dedicated volunteers since the late 1980s (many are members of Norfolk Gardens Trust). Such a peaceful and beautiful garden in the bottom of an old lime quarry in the centre of Norwich, which is usually open every day for people to enjoy or get involved with.  However, I am worried that, with social isolation and distancing, the volunteers will not be able to come in and the garden risks becoming a jungle again.