It is said that Brantwood, the Lake Coniston home of the eminent Victorian polymath John Ruskin, was selected by him in a toss-up between settling in the English Lake District or in Switzerland.
Likewise, head gardener Sally Beamish had a tricky choice back in 1988, between the job of leading the Brantwood Estate’s restoration or a major cruising race around the Devon coast. Luckily for Brantwood, Sally’s passion for horticulture won out over her nautical aspirations and she remains here at this idyllic 250 acre estate in one of England’s most dramatic locations.

The Brantwood Estate neighbours my own garden, both clinging to the rocky slopes between Grizedale Forest and the Lake, and hence much of the guidance for my new garden has come from looking at its planting and from Sally’s tried and tested advice.  Like me, my bees greatly appreciate our proximity to Brantwoods extensive and diverse gardens – they barely hesitate on my newly-planted patch, instead jetting off downhill towards Brantwood’s eight ‘themed’ gardens. Luckily, Brantwood's deer fence protects them from a more destructive visitor, but I can say from experience it’s not easy gardening here. Thin, acidic soil, heavy rainfall and waterlogging, and the dreaded midges must be balanced against the allure of what Ruskin called the most stunning view in Europe.

 The Brantwood gardens as we see them now differ greatly from Ruskin’s time. Perhaps surprisingly for such a prolific writer, little conclusive evidence remains about how or what Ruskin gardened here. From his own correspondance and that of his cousin Joan Severn who was also an important influcence on the site, fragments of information emerge – that there were perhaps 22 gardeners at one time, that the orange day lily still grown here may originate with an acquisition of Joan’s. Perhaps this lack of documentation best reflects how Ruskin viewed his garden though – as a living laboratory of constantly evolving ideas. The high fell above the main site, for example, hosted a short-lived farming experiment, and unlike many Victorian gardens, there is little evidence of avid collecting of plant genera or of formality.

 It is this lack of a garden blueprint that excites Sally Beamish. “Compared to many historic garden restorations, there’s a huge amount of freedom here at Brantwood to develop ideas which are rooted in Ruskin’s philosophy but not dictated by it”.

A grant from the Heritage Lottery has made it possible to develop a series of gardens around the main house. The ‘Hortus Inclusus’ is an instructive native herb garden, which at only 3 seasons old is flourishing abundantly in its warm, sunny site by the Lake. Nearby is the Trellis Walk, a mainly herbaceous planting tracing historically significant plants in British culture. It’s here that we begin to see the influence of Gundela Deutschlander, one of Sally’s two full time gardeners. A trained fine artist hailing originally from South Africa, she has brought a bold design eye to Brantwood, with her interest in more exotic planting extending Sally’s more traditional repertoire.

 “It’s very much a team effort here – the garden is one that can accommodate many areas of expertise” acknowledges Sally.

One of Gundala’s most interesting experiments is the rejuvenation of a border of elderly rhodedendron lutea with architectural plants such as digitalis parviflora and grasses, sharply contrasting in both in form and season with the familiar shrubbery.

The gardens have also benefitted from team member Peter Wright’s interest in green woodworking, and idiosyncratic furniture and fencing punctuate the garden throughout.

The usual Lakeland suspects - immense rhodedendrons – merge with the hillside at most of the garden borders. As one ascends behind the house, deep shade encompasses the hillside at points. Walks lead to the Linton Fern Garden (named after Ruskin’s predeccessor here) a collection of 270 native ferns, and surprisingly, a little cottage garden which was Ruskin’s favourite, hewn out of the woodland and now called The Professors' Garden.

The most important recent addition though, and one which merited an opening visit by Gardener’s Question Time host Eric Robson, is the Zig-Zaggy. Sited on a sunny slope, the garden design is based on a small sketch by Ruskin himself, thought to depict the stages of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The visitor passes through a thorny gateway to a succession of landscaping and plantings referring to themes such as “The Terrace of Envy”. Though relating to the traditions of the narrative Italian renaissance gardens, Sally’s design modestly originated in “simply reading the book and thinking up ways of illustrating its ideas”. The result is a playful and eclectic mixture of materials and plants including local charcoal and Herdwick sheepskins as mulches, punctuated with ‘hot’ plantings which include red chard, cannas (again, the influence of Gundela), imperata and sempervivum.

Though still in its youth the Zig-Zaggy garden has no doubt contributed to the 25% increase in visitor numbers this year at Brantwood, testimony to the rising interest in historic gardens. Sally, like all good gardeners, still has some fascinating plans up her (permanently rolled up)  sleeves: “I’d love to bury the car park and rebuild the kitchen garden that was once there, and we’re planning a ‘Rain Garden’ with plants chosen specifically for the way they react to rain – perhaps their leaves hold it, for example….”
From the fun theatricality of the Zig-Zaggy to the hillside mosses gardened specifically for their beautiful winter glow, Sally clearly shares Ruskins ability to “think like a child and to see both the micro and the macro in anything he looked at”. When asked if there’s any plant she loves, but that just don’t fit in to Brantwood, she concedes an affection for auriculas and dahlias, but remembering that Ruskin, no dour killjoy, once delivered a lecture dressed as a magpie, perhaps even their flamboyance will one day find its place here.

Copyright Karen Guthrie, 2003
This article was first published in The Northern Garden magazine

For more information on Brantwood visit www.brantwood.org.uk