“Evergreens create a winter backbone”
Head gardener Benjamin Preston explains how to get York Gate’s Arts & Crafts look in your own garden
Tucked away in the pretty village of Adel on the outskirts of Leeds, York Gate is regarded as one of Britain’s finest gardens. There’s a lot packed into the one-acre space, from a white garden and water features to a woodland area and vegetable garden. But it’s the fantastic structure, the intricate detailing in the hard landscaping and the quirky features that make York Gate such a unique and special place. Head Gardener Ben Preston tells us about the garden…
When was York Gate created? The Spencer family – Fred, Sybil and son Robin – moved here in 1951, when it was
York Gate Farm. They bought it so they could keep their horses and ducks, but quickly decided to create a garden. It was a work in progress for more than 30 years – Fred died in 1963, Robin continued developing it until he passed away in 1982 and Sybil tended the garden until her death in 1994, when it was bequeathed to horticultural charity Perennial.
How did the design come about? It’s an Arts & Crafts-style garden created some 50 years or so after the Arts & Crafts movement was at its peak. The Spencers took inspiration from William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll. They bought a lot of plants from Margery Fish at East Lambrook Manor and there are letters in the archives from Christopher Lloyd at Great Dixter. Robin created the central canal after Sybil saw the moon pool at Hidcote and decided she would like something similar.
What are the key elements?
The garden is divided into different ‘rooms’ by hedges, with each area linked using vistas and sight lines. The yew and beech hedges create the backbone of the garden along with the hard landscaping.
Fred and Robin made the paths from Yorkstone on the farm, which ties in with the house and gives the garden its sense of place. There’s also the attention to detail. Here in the Canal Garden, the design for the carpet path, with granite setts laid in a diamond shape, for instance, was taken from a Japanese book on garden design. Fred and Robin were both building surveyors and on their travels they’d collect ornaments ➤
and artefacts, including the millstones, which they laid at the intersections of paths. They make you pause and decide which direction to take. And of course there are the yew sails, which have become an iconic symbol of the garden.
How is the garden still evolving?
The wonderful structure doesn’t change, but we do have the opportunity to play with the planting. The Spencers always used the most up-to-date plants and were always seeking out new species and cultivars.
Sybil’s garden was redesigned in 2004 – the only ‘room’ to be changed since the garden was created, and this is a part which we feel we have the most licence to evolve. We have plans to create an exotic garden there –very much in vogue at the moment.
What are the garden’s highlights in February? We have a great collection of snowdrops, winter aconites, Cyclamen coum, Iris reticulata and hellebores, all of which are set off by the crisp hedging – we clip the yew at the back end of the year so it looks good right through winter.
How can readers get the look of York Gate at home? York Gate is one acre but it feels much bigger because of the clever use of ornaments to draw the eye. For example, placing the Italianate stone font at the bottom of the carpet path helps to create a vista in winter – a really useful technique in small gardens.
Pick one or two simple materials and stick with them throughout the garden to give continuity. Strategically placed features such as box balls or wicker baskets, which we use at York Gate, help to emphasise path entrances.
It can be hard to keep the edge of an herbaceous border looking crisp all year round, but the black grass (ophiopogon) alongside our carpet path does this really well when it’s planted close together in a long row like a low hedge.
How does the garden progress through the seasons? The garden relies on successional planting. After the late winter bulbs, daffodils, tulips and alliums take over. Then there are the herbaceous layers for summer with grasses for late-season interest and some lovely trees such as Acer aconitifolium and various different species of beech, which look fabulous in autumn. ✿
We clip the yew at the back end of the year so it looks good right through winter