Celebrate World Topiary Day & Cumbrian gardens with EBTS UK
The Lake District and its environs is home to some of the finest topiary gardens in the UK.
This year we fit that in with Levens Hall, the flagship of topiary, who are hosting World Topiary Day, and we’ll link our visit with a private garden as well that day.
This is our first in person AGM after 3 years and it takes place in the lovely surroundings of the near by Netherwood Hotel, Grange over sands.
We revisit Gresgarth on Friday afternoon and Holker Hall on Sunday, the home of our patron, Lord Cavendish who will be joining us at the AGM on Saturday 13 May. Two contrasting gardens, Summerdale, a fine walled garden and nursery concluding with a special private visit to Lawkland Hall, owned by cousins of owners of Levens Hall are the afternoon visits. The AGM day will conclude with a special dinner on Saturday evening.
Full itinerary for the weekend
Friday 12 May
14.00: Meet up at Gresgarth Hall
A beautiful 12-acre garden on a sloping site above a tributary of the River Lune. The garden is arranged as a series of terraces below the historic Gothic-style house of Gresgarth Hall. The garden is the creation of the garden designer Arabella Lennox-Boyd, who moved here with her family in 1978. She has developed the gardens herself by marrying Italian style with British plantsmanship.
16.00: Leave for our hotel in Grange-over-Sands (25 miles: 40 minutes)
19.00: Meet up for drinks at Netherwood Hotel
19.30: Dinner at Netherwood Hotel (two courses)
Photos of Gresgarth Hall by Jenny Mackness (Flickr)
Saturday 13 May
10.00: Annual General Meetings starts at Netherwood Hotel
11.00-11.30 Coffee break
13.00 Lunch at Netherwood Hotel
14.30 Meet up at Summerdale Garden & Nursery
Owners Gail and David Sheals are former doctors who are now ploughing a different furrow in the world of horticulture since moving here in 1997. Summerdale is a 1½-acre part-walled country garden set around an 18th century former vicarage. Several defined areas have been created by hedges, each with its own theme and linked by intricate cobbled pathways. It is a beautiful setting with fine views across to Farleton Fell. There are traditional herbaceous borders, ponds, woodland and meadow planting which provide year-round interest. There are large collections of auricula, primulas and snowdrops.
16.00 (until 17.30): Lawkland Hall, Austwick
The house is a stone-built Elizabethan manor which Giles and Felicity Bowring inherited in 1987. The garden has been gradually developed to create a nature-friendly environment which is now almost organic. Hedges of beech, yew and box help to divide up the area (about 1½ acres). There are mixed borders formally laid out in the upper garden which gives way to long grass planted with bulbs and native wild flowers running downhill towards the lake which was created in the early 2020s from the nearby beck and which attracts wildlife including kingfishers and herons. A central axis runs from the back of the house towards a small “ride” in the wood beyond the lake consisting of cone-shaped yews and an avenue of Malus hupehensis.
19.30: Meet up for drinks at Netherwood Hotel
20.00: Dinner at Netherwood Hotel (three courses)
Sunday 14 May
10.00: Meet up at Levens Hall
A truly spectacular garden dating back to the 1690s, the ten acres of gardens retain many original features including the world’s oldest topiary gardens. This surreal and unique collection of ancient box and yew trees, in abstract or geometric shape, rises up from a beautiful display of underplanting, populated with an ever-changing array of over 30,000 bedding plants, all grown in the greenhouses on site. We will be shown around the garden by the head gardener and have an opportunity to view the interior of the house.
12.30: Lunch at Levens Hall
14.00: Meet up at Holker Hall
Holker Hall is the home of the patron of EBTS UK, Lord Cavendish of Furness. It was described by Pevsner as “the grandest building of its date in Lancashire…by the best architects then living in the county.” The building dates from the 16th century, with alterations, additions, and rebuilding in the 18th and 19th centuries. The west wing was rebuilt after a major fire in 1871. The 23 acres of gardens comprise a series of formal gardens set within a more informal landscape of interesting trees, shrubs and meadows. They are planted to offer year-round inspiration for casual visitors and keen gardeners alike. The spring is a riot of colour with displays of tulips, daffodils, wallflowers and spring meadows, framed by majestic Rhododendrons and Magnolias. Summer brings billowing borders packed with colour and exciting tender plants, and wonderful summer flowering trees such as Styrax, Stewartia and Eucryphia. Much of the gardens you see today, were developed by Lord and Lady Cavendish over the last 40 years. The gardens are now entering a new phase with their daughter Lucy Cavendish and her husband, Tor McLaren, now starting to make their own mark.
Evening free: see below for restaurant suggestions
Restaurants in the area
There are optional dinners at the Netherwood Hotel on both Friday 12 and Saturday 13 May. Sunday 14 is a free evening and you may wish to dine somewhere else (although the restaurant at Netherwood Hotel will be open). Unfortunately, most restaurants in the area are closed on Sunday evening. However, the following venues in the area should be open:
Grange Hotel, Grange-over-Sands
Special mention must be made of L’Enclume restaurant in Cartmel (01539-536362). Just a ten-minute drive away from Grange-over-Sands. This is the only restaurant with three Michelin stars in the north of England. It is closed on Sundays and Mondays but you may wish to eat here instead of the hotel on one of the other evenings. Reservations will need to be made well in advance.
