a lesson in desıgn
Although just an acre in size, the garden at York Gate in West Yorkshire punches way above its weight in inspiring ideas
anyone with a garden to plan or improve should make sure they put York Gate high up on their list of places to visit. This one-acre plot, arranged around three sides of a modest Victorian farmhouse 15 minutes’ drive north of Leeds, is rich in detail. Each of its 13 garden rooms is sensitively and creatively interlinked, with glimpses through from one area to the next.
The winter months, when the beds and borders are bare and the paths are fully exposed, are the ideal time to analyse its structure and discover what makes this space so inviting. Begun in 1951 and created in the Arts and Crafts tradition, there is nothing grand or overblown about the garden and, despite the fact that there are more than a dozen different areas shoehorned into the site, it never feels cramped or overworked.
Paths are wide enough for one person to pass along easily, and features that you pass beneath, such as the arbour and the nut-walk tunnel, are set at a comfortable level above head height, which makes visitors feel welcome and contained. Best of all, wherever you look, there is a tantalising view, often neatly framed and opening up onto another part of the plot, whether towards a rustic folly or a row of sail-like topiary yews.
Since 1994, York Gate has been in the care of Perennial (formerly known as the Gardeners’ Benevolent Society) and has undergone extensive renovations in recent years. Head gardener Adam Bowley and his team are keeping it very much in the spirit of its creators, the Spencer family – Frederick, Sybil and their son, Robin – who moved here in 1951. It was rough farmland when they arrived and Frederick, a surveyor, applied his trained eye to lay out the bones of the garden, dividing it into ‘rooms’ radiating from a main axis path. When he died in 1963, Robin took over the
garden’s development, together with his mother – both were accomplished plantspeople and York Gate was very much a collaborative effort. After Robin died prematurely, aged 47, Sybil gardened on alone for 12 years, lovingly adding to the work of her husband and son.
The different areas include an old orchard garden with a pond, a wooded dell, a miniature pinetum, herbaceous borders and a raised canal, a herb garden, kitchen garden, fern border and a white and silver garden. Robin was an inveterate collector and filled York Gate with his finds: a stone arbour is topped with cruck beams, complete with scorch marks, from a Leeds chapel that was demolished after a fire; stone griffins were also salvaged, along with an old water pump that now forms a focal point in the dell.
There was much experimentation with planting and in his diaries Robin freely admitted that this was not always successful: “During the early years of a border, I do a lot of moving and... giving an ailing plant a walk in a wheelbarrow is a kill-or-cure remedy I can recommend.”
As with any garden, work continues on a weekly basis to edit and improve, and keep things in scale. It seems likely that the Spencers, if they could see it now, would approve.
York Gate is open Sun-thurs including bank holidays, 12.30-4.30pm, from 9 April until 28 September 2017. Group visits by arrangement. For details, see yorkgate.org.uk.
Wherever you look, there is a tantalising view opening up onto another part of the plot