Explore Hexham's hidden gardens

Sunday, July 3, is the date to ring in your calendar if you want to take to the trail christened Hexham Hidden Gardens.

And if you’re a gardener, why wouldn’t you? Because you’ll get the chance to meet Capability Brown (or someone very like him) and the town’s answer to Monty Don along the way, do a bit of pond dipping, perhaps win a voucher or two if you’re any good at quizzes, drink Pimms and eat cake.

Oh, and, of course, pick up some tips from some of the most passionate, green-fingered people around.

Organised in the name of Hexham Community Partnership and designed to raise funds for the community work that emanates out from its base at No. 28 in the east end, the trail meanders round 15 oases as different as they come.

On the one hand, you’ve got the mini-allotment developed behind No.28 itself and on the other, the private, ornamental garden attached to West Close House in the west end of the town. They are a picture of contrasts.

Volunteer supervisor Elizabeth Leonard said: “Here at No. 28, we want to encourage people to cook with fresh food as much as anything else.

“We collaborate with the Sure Start Children’s Centre (within the grounds of Hexham East First School), which uses its kitchen to run short cookery courses, a participants can use some of the fresh veg from this garden.

“We also put fresh produce into the food bags given out by the Food Bank. Tesco isn’t keen on putting fresh food in their bags, so we sneak it in here – lettuce, rocket, radishes, spuds, beans and nasturtiums, among other things.”

No.28 attracts quite a number of volunteers with varying skills keen to help out in the garden, often at the point they are considering applying for the horticultural course for the unemployed – it gives their CV a bit of a boost.

The first garden we visited during last week’s preview tour, it proved to be at the head, or the source, of the river of gardening tips that flowed the rest of the evening.

Large plastic drinks bottles lay on the soil, full of water.

“The reflections keep the feral cats away – there are quite a lot of them around here,” said Elizabeth.

“We kept having to clean up after them, but since we started putting the bottles down, we don’t have anything like the problem we used to have.”

Buckwheat and phacelia combined made for a wonderful green manure, the type of fertiliser made out of growing plants that was then ploughed back into the soil.

And then, rather a nice embellishment.

“Borage flowers are good in ice-cubes,” said one woman.

“You put them in your drink and when the ice melts, you’ve got the flower floating round in your drink – it’s very attractive.”

There was certainly nothing as prosaic as plastic bottles in Patricia and Stuart Graham’s garden, tucked away behind West Close House. It is immaculate.

“When I was very small, one of the things I loved doing was cutting my granny’s lawn with her dress-maker’s scissors,” said Patricia.

Her own lawn looks like it’s been cut with scissors, too, blade by perfect blade.

“We’ve been working on this garden for 40 years and it’s forever changing. It’s a garden you can just sit and relax in though, somewhere you can retreat from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

“Fifty percent of the garden stays exactly as it is throughout the winter too. I designed it to be architectural, so it’s got all these shrubs and shapes and evergreens.

“There’s always something to look at and it’s very bee and butterfly friendly.”

The local and highly respected professional gardener Chris Atkinson will be in the Grahams’ garden, ready to answer visitors’ questions.

Patricia said: “We call him the Monty Don of Hexham, he’s so knowledgeable.”

Living further down Hextol Terrace at Hewn Stones, Jane Brantom says she’s at the other end of the scale from the Grahams.

“This as an example of a work in progress – this is about what a non-gardener can do with a lot of help from her friends.”

But you should see how far she has come.

What was once simply the driveway leading to the old coach-house behind her house is now the garden, complete with a new pond and a stone bench fashioned out of an old lintel.

Standing to attention nearby is a stone pillar sculptor David Edwick had in his studio at Ochrelands. “It migrated,” said Jane.

Capability Brown, otherwise known as Hexham-based actor John Cobb, will also be in residence at Hewn Stones for the afternoon, ready to chat about August’s 300th anniversary of the birth of England’s greatest landscape designer.

Sylvie and Trevor Field, who live a few streets away on Low Burswell, can reasonably claim to have conquered their own particular landscaping challenge in the past three years, such was the magnitude of the renovation project they took on when they bought Beechburn.

“Everything was sagging,” said Sylvie, and that was just the house.

The same close attention to detail applied to the house paid dividends in the garden, too, however and today the two are a picture-perfect example of harmony and balance.

“We had a digger here for a long time while we were renovating the house,” she said. “So we got them to do a lot of the earth-shifting and landscaping as well. Most of the trees, hedging and shrubs was already here, so there was a structure to work with, but we created the terracing and the different levels that have given the garden variety and more interest.”

Another place that is absolutely brimming with interest is the walled garden at Queen Elizabeth High School.

Emma Thompson is the person at the helm – she started work in the garden 20 years ago when she was but a teenager.

“I like a mystery round every corner, so when people go round they are surprised,” she said.

Originally part of the kitchen garden for the old Hydro Hotel, the building that now houses the school’s sixth-form, the walled garden and surrounding grounds once employed six full-time gardeners.

Emma said: “It’s very different now, of course. Today it provides an outdoor classroom environment for learning purposes.

“The thing is this government has move away from vocational courses and horticulture isn’t even recognised or offered as a qualification to under-16s.

“But those skills are needed and some people have a passion for them – you can be very intelligent and still want to do something like horticulture.”

Her own passion is helping young people to discover their passion and to enjoy the creativity of gardening.

Until her Year 11s took their GCSEs in environmental science and horticulture in May, she had around 20 students working in the walled garden.

That has just halved, but needless to say, new recruits will arrive in September.

They will find the garden at its best, unlike the shadow of a once splendid place Emma, “overseer and chief weeder”, was introduced to as a 19-year-old.

“It had a box hedge, a few espaliered apple trees and an old greenhouse,” she said. “Oh, and there were lots of bins, piles of wood, thistles and years’ of debris that had been just chucked over the wall.”

On the contrary, visitors on July 3 will discover flourishing herbacious borders, vegetable patches coming to fruition, the invitation to do a bit of pond dipping and moments of serenity and beauty round every corner.

Further information about the Hexham Hidden Gardens trail is available in advance from Cogito Books on St Mary’s Chare and from the Abbey shop.

On the day itself, the gardens will be open from 1.30pm till 6pm and three of them will act as “starter” gardens, where people can pay the nominal entrance fee and pick up a route map.

They will be the community garden at Hexham Middle School, the walled garden at Queen Elizabeth High School and at Haydon House, on Alexandra Terrace.

The first two have car parks and the Masonic Hall car park is available for the third.