Glorious Gardens from Above episode 11 – Cumbria: Christine Walkden heads for the lakes and fells of Cumbria to visit some more magnificent gardens.
At Levens Hall, she lends a hand planting some spring bulbs and hears some of lakeland lad Len’s special memories. At Holehird, she meets the dedicated volunteers who have restored this 19th-century garden to its former glory. And we discover the spur to Beatrix Potter’s prolific writing career.
Glorious Gardens from Above episode 11 – Cumbria
Levens Hall
Levens Hall is a manor house in the Kent valley, near the village of Levens and 5 miles (9 km) south of Kendal in Cumbria, Northern England. The manor house has a celebrated and large topiary garden, which was first created by the French gardener Guillaume Beaumont. Beaumont also planned the tree planting in the deer park, now inhabited by black fallow deer and Bagot goats.
The park and gardens laid out by Beaumont between 1689 and 1712 have survived remarkably intact. They have been described as retaining “almost all of the essential elements of the completed scheme as shown on maps of the park and gardens of 1730”.
Holehird Gardens
Holehird Gardens is an extensive 10 acre site located near Windermere, Cumbria, England. It is the home of the Lakeland Horticultural Society. The garden consists of a large variety of plants, particularly those suited to the local climate with its high rainfall. It is made up of extensive rock and heather gardens, alpine houses, and a walled garden which is of particular interest for its herbaceous borders. It was once voted by BBC gardeners to be one of the nation’s favourite gardens.
Holehird was built in the 1860s as a private home to a design by J. S. Crowther. The house is currently used by Leonard Cheshire Disability.
The garden was created in the late nineteenth century by three successive owners of the mansion. The landscape architect Thomas Mawson enlarged the garden in 1902. However by 1945 it became too expensive to maintain and it was effectively abandoned and totally overgrown.
