Garden trail grows sense of community

Owners Ruth and David Marley describe it as the lamb Olympics and they’ve whiled away many a happy coffee break watching the youngsters frolicking in the beautiful, sheltered vale that is their vista.

By way of contrast, Monica and John Haigh have lambs in the smallholding they have carved out of a windswept site that sits above the 1000ft contour line delineating the uppermost reaches of Hexhamshire.

Working with nature rather than battling it, they have also created an accompanying cottage garden that is not only bee-friendly, but contains a whole host of rabbit-proof plants too.

Ann and Bob Paton, meanwhile, have been busy turning six acres of what was originally rough, boggy grazing land into a very fruitful market garden, called Hexhamshire Organics.

Their domain, The Lee in Juniper, now boast two greenhouses, two poly tunnels and an orchard that will eventually offer up apples, pears, plums and cherries.

What the three couples have in common, besides a passion for nature and nurturing the land in their guardianship, is their participation in the Hexhamshire Garden Trail on Sunday, June 14.

Seventeen households in total are throwing open their otherwise private gardens to the public in aid of their local parish church, St Helen’s in Whitley Chapel.

Horticultural inspiration will be on offer in unbridled measure, along with nuggets of local history – courtesy of exhibitions in the church and the first school across the road – and a couple of generous prizes for the winners of two quizzes that can be filled in on the day.

To top it all, there will also be plant and cake stalls, a soup lunch and afternoon teas available en route.

Co-ordinator of the enterprise Jenny Stirling said the aim was to raise funds to help cover the ongoing maintenance costs of St Helen’s.

“There’s also the fact that because Hexhamshire has such a small, scattered population, we need events to bring people together,” she said.

“This is the third time we’ve done this – we had garden trails in 2007 and 2011 – and we’ve got a very diverse mix this time round.

“Two gardens, at Steel Grove and Westburnhope, are right on the boundary with the fells and very windswept; then there is a group in Juniper and Whitley Mill – down in the dell, next to the Rowley Burn and much more sheltered.

“They form a little cluster as opposed to the first two, which stand on their own, miles apart.

“We’ll put posters up saying ‘keep going, you’re on the right road’.”

Jenny and husband, Bob, live at Queens Letch, just off the road to Dipton Mill, and as such are the closest of the participants to Hexham.

They bought the house 10 years ago from a family whose generations had lived there for over a century.

It had been rented out for a few years, though, and by the time the Stirlings bought it, the garden was home to rabbit warrens and a badger sett.

Today it boasts a rockery and borders, a vegetable patch and fruit gardens.

Similarly, Bob and Ann Paton have done wonders since they moved from Gosforth to Juniper four years ago.

The 6.5 acres that came with The Lee were rather more than they planned to buy originally.

“We were looking for maybe an acre to be self-sufficient,” said Ann, “and six-and-a-half acres is a bit more than self-sufficient!

“But we fell in love with the house and its features. This was the forge for the ‘Shire, the remains of which are still in the kitchen.”

An orchard has taken root where sheep once grazed and a veritable banquet of soft fruit and vegetables is growing where cows once ruminated.

Ann said: “We have established a smallholding – that’s exactly what it is.

“Of the three fields we have, the top one is the well field, because it has an old well in it.

“The next project is to plant it up with lavender so our bees can produce lavender honey.”

The couple were delighted last year, after two and a half years of hard work, to be awarded the prized ‘organic’ mark by the Soil Association.

They now feel they too have taken root in Hexhamshire, they feel so settled.

“Despite being interlopers, we have been welcomed with open arms,” she said.

“I think it’s because we’re doing something that is ‘farming’ in a farming community – we are here to make use of the land.”

Ruth Marley, on the other hand, is ‘Shire born and bred and, as such, both she and Fox Cottage are steeped in its history.

The cottage was once the tied premises for the barman who worked next door at the one-time Fox and Hounds pub, known widely as the Click’em Inn. That closed 20 years ago.

The Marleys’ garden was once the pub car park, but it wasn’t until they dug a metre-deep test hole that they discovered what lay underneath – layer upon layer of rubble deposited during the 500-year lifespan of the old coaching inn.

Ruth said: “I got in the hole, which was level with the top of my hips, to see if we could get under all the stone, but in fact I discovered all the cobbles from an old lead mine had been dumped there.

“The Click’em Inn got its nickname from the fact the miners brought the lead here to be counted in.”

Sixty tons of top soil finally gave the couple something to work with and as self-deprecating as Ruth is about their little garden, it is as idyllic as they come.

Fox Cottage is also notable for the fact the poet Basil Bunting lived and died there during the 1980s.

Ruth knew him as an old man; he had a long white beard by then and used to swear a lot, she said.

“He much preferred his beloved North Tyne Valley to the ‘Shire, which he found quite ‘tight’ by comparison, so I don’t know why he lived here!

“One day, a car full of Japanese people pulled up outside and asked if this was where Basil Bunting lived ... “

On the day of the Hexhamshire Garden Trail, Ruth will be demonstrating how to make willow angels, which can be used to support flower displays, climbers such as sweet peas and, to rather novel effect, Christmas decorations.

In a nice piece of symmetry, she was taught how to make them by Aggie Appleby who, along with her husband, owned the Click’em Inn during the 1950s.

“This isn’t a prime garden, but we can see the church from it, so we thought we needed to be part of the trail,” she said.

“It’s really nice that the whole community is taking part, that even though it is so spread out, it is still very strong.

“It’s all for the cause. Even if some of us aren’t regular church-goers, we all want the system to continue, to retain the heart of the community.”

Tickets and trail maps can be purchased at St Helen’s Church in Whitley Chapel on the day. The gardens will be open from 11am till 5.30pm.