Capability Brown was born in Northumberland in 1716. Almost three hundred years later, just a few miles away, the Duchess of Northumberland has created one of the 21st century’s most spectacular gardens. Clearly, there is something in the air here that encourages a passion for garden design. More often than not the gardens provide the perfect backdrop for some grand country houses.
Capability Brown influenced the ‘forest garden’ at Gibside – the former home of the late Queen Mother’s family – and the 18th century landscape gardens at Wallington. Wallington also includes a walled garden and laburnum walk. The Alnwick Garden (www.alnwickgarden.com/), with its Grand Cascade water feature, which adjoins the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland’s home at Alnwick Castle, is constantly evolving.
Lord Armstrong created one of the largest rock gardens in Europe at his Victorian country house, Cragside (the gardens remain open while the house is restored during 2006). The magnificent Grade 1 listed garden at Belsay Hall is a plantsman’s delight with a dramatic quarry garden, magnificent magnolias, long-flowering rhododendrons and rare ferns and fritillaries. At the other end of the scale, Bide-a-Wee Cottage Gardens and Nursery (www.bideawee.co.uk/) are the archetypal country cottage gardens created out of an abandoned sandstone quarry. Slip across to Holy Island (www.lindisfarne.org.uk/) to see Gertrude Jekyll’s tiny walled garden in the lea of Lindisfarne Castle.