Graham Wylie closes Chesters Walled Garden to public

Jul 4 2009 by Tony Henderson, The Journal

Maximum sunshine in an oasis of peace

CHESTERS Walled Garden is home to one of the largest collections of herbs in the country, with 900 different varieties.

They include the national collections of thyme, marjoram and burnet.

Centre-stage goes to the 30-metre-long thyme bank, at its best in late June, when its Persian carpet display of over 100 varieties of thyme in pinks, purples, whites, gold and silver attract the bees.

In the 1920s there was a staff of 15 gardeners. The north wall is a hot wall with a flue system and it was the job of young stove boys to keep the fires alight all night.

When Susie White came across the garden, it was being used to grow vegetables for the adjacent Chesters mansion, which was built in 1771.

The garden was overgrown and bare in many areas, with a 20ft chimney in the middle for the greenhouse boiler system.

Now the garden offers features such as:

A knot garden based on a design of 1617, from the first gardening book for women called A Country Housewife’s Garden.

A section which contains herbs which the Romans would have grown in Britain. Hadrian’s Wall runs 20 yards north of the garden and the line of a Roman road crosses the site at an angle.

Herbaceous borders 30 metres long by three metres wide.

Espalier apple trees more than 100 years old, a Mediterranean border and pond.

Woods of beech and yew shelter the garden, which slopes gently south to maximise the sunshine.

This all creates a microclimate which supports a range of plants such as eucalyptus and cistus that are not always guaranteed to survive a Northumbrian winter.