Visit Alnwick
This fairytale pleasure garden in Northumberland charms visitors as it reawakens in spring, says Louise Curley
This fairytale pleasure garden is charming in spring
Northumberland’s Alnwick Garden is a pleasure garden with a playful, modern twist. Treats to enjoy include exciting water jet blasts, colourful parterres, orchards and rose gardens, a treehouse café on stilts and a brooding poison garden, where deadly plants are kept under lock and key. (Not to mention the fairytale turreted castle, where scenes from Harry Potter and Downton Abbey were filmed.) The garden is the vision of Jane Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, who moved in when her husband, the 12th Duke of Northumberland, inherited the magnificent estate from his brother in 1995. Alnwick enjoys a lustrous history of garden design, with landscapes by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and a formal Italianate garden created by the 4th Duke in the mid-19th century. During the Second World War the grounds were turned over to food production and the garden had latterly become a tree nursery until the new duchess arrived with ambitious plans to transform it. In 1997 she employed award-winning father and son landscapers Jacques and Peter Wirtz to innovate with the design. A spectacular Grand Cascade – the largest water feature of its kind in the UK – now greets visitors on arrival.
A romantic orchard... is surrounded by a sparkling carpet of 50,000 alliums
Echoed by hornbeam hedging on either side, its sinuous limestone curves sweep lazily down a slope, creating a tumbling multi-tiered waterfall. The engineering used to create the cascade and fountains won an award from the Institution of Civil Engineers when it opened in 2000. Two specialist engineers are employed to make sure all the water features run smoothly. An impressive triple archway leads into the walled Ornamental Garden, its ornate wrought iron gates dating back to 16thcentury Venice. Beyond, the garden is divided into a parterre of geometric beds edged with box and filled with glorious herbaceous perennials and shrubs. Pergolas, wrought-iron domes and high brick walls are clad in elegant climbing roses and clematis. Water is a feature here too, with a central pond, rills and reflecting pools, while ironwork frames provide support for pleached crab apples such as ‘Evereste’ and ‘Red Sentinel’. In spring, more than 300 ornamental cherry trees form a romantic orchard in white, later surrounded by a sparkling carpet of 50,000 ‘Purple Sensation’ alliums. It’s the world’s largest collection of prunus ‘Tai-haku’ – Japanese great white cherry. Other highlights include the Bamboo Labyrinth – a devilish maze created from mass plantings of evergreen Fargesia rufa, which swishes decorously in this exposed part of the garden. Equally moving is the Serpent Garden with seven water sculptures, designed by William Pye, showing how water can behave in different ways – from splashes and trickles, to flows, waves, water curtains and dark reflecting pools. In summer, more than 3,000 roses in over 200 cultivars, fill the air of the rose garden with their heady perfume. Then there’s the fabulous elevated Alnwick treehouse, guaranteed to bring a spring to your step: it’s a magical, ricketylooking (but doubtless structurally sound!) cedar-shingle house on stilts built around 16 lime trees. A perfect dining experience complete with fairy lights.
GARDEN OF IDEAS (clockwise from top left) The cedar-clad restaurant is built among 16 lime trees; some of the Poison Garden collection is caged for safety; Harry Potter learned to fly at the castle, which dates from 1096; allium ‘Purple Sensation’ in the cherry orchard No visit is complete without a tour of the fascinating Poison Garden, guarded by locked iron gates emblazoned with a skull and crossbones. Visitors can only enter by joining one of the regular guided tours. Some of the deadly specimens are fairly common, such as monkshood, foxgloves and laburnum, while others, such as coca and cannabis, need a special licence from the government in order to grow them. The most dangerous plants are caged to avoid injury to visitors! The scale of this garden is breathtaking; Alnwick manages to combine a sense of fun and learning in quite a remarkable way.