This year sees the centenary of the birth of garden designer Rosemary Verey and the 30th anniversary of the Barnsley Festival, which she helped to start. The annual event includes open gardens and I’ve been to see one that Mrs Verey designed.
There’s something about good garden design that endures. It may be 18 years since the late Rosemary Verey laid out the garden at Monk Bretton but her influence is still obvious.
A strong framework, carefully aligned views and her trademark layered planting give the garden the considered feel that is common to any that has had professional help.
Mrs Verey was called in to design the garden – one of several in Barnsley that she dealt with – by the previous owners, Sir Theodore and Lady Brinkman, in 2000.
At the time, there was little around the converted barn and the project was extensive.
“It was changed completely,” explains Adrian Valentine, who bought Monk Bretton nine years ago with his wife, Alice. “It was almost a blank canvas here for her to work with.”
One of the biggest alterations was moving the drive from the front of the house to one side so that today the windows look out not on parked cars and gravel but lawn, trees and a series of small ponds and waterfalls, the grass either side sculpted to mimic the different levels of water.
“It’s not great when you’re mowing it,” comments Alice.
The garden’s framework comes mainly from trees and topiary. Mop-headed Portuguese laurel stand sentinel either side of the main gate, their shape echoed lower down by clipped Lonicera nitida. A line of espaliered apples divide the garden – the fruit is carefully chosen to give a successional harvest – there are clipped yew hedges screening off the end of the garden and topiary yew and box running alongside the ponds.
Hornbeam is used to disguise neighbouring farm buildings: two pleached hedges form a cool, green avenue with the trees against the building slightly taller to create a screen. Having two hedges draws the eye away from the outer boundary, while ‘blocks’ of hornbeam at the base of the hedge provide extra interest.
When it comes to the planting, there are echoes of Barnsley House in the way borders are tiered with first trees, including sorbus, then shrubs, such as hydrangea and choisya, and finally perennials used to give a lower storey with violas ‘anchoring’ the corners of borders.
Primroses nestle at the bottom of the hedges, aquilegia and alliums are about to flower and foxgloves have been allowed to self-seed.
The colours are soft – white, pale pink and blue – with the garden moving more into shades of green as the season progresses.
The couple knew little about gardening before moving to Barnsley and, although they still have occasional help from the previous gardener, Piers Bowley, they now manage the garden themselves.
“I didn’t know anything about gardening at all,” says Alice, “I have definitely learned a lot.”
The garden at Monk Bretton will be open as part of the Barnsley Festival on May 19.
A year of celebration in Barnsley
Barnsley House, the former home of Rosemary Verey and now a boutique hotel near Cirencester, is leading a year of events marking the centenary of her birth.
Mrs Verey had an international reputation as a garden designer, working for among others, Prince Charles and Elton John, she wrote many books and was awarded the OBE and the prestigious RHS Victoria Medal of Honour.
There will be talks, garden tours and a Christmas concert supporting the gardeners’ charity, Perennial. For details, see Perennial or Barnsley House.
On May 18, the hotel will be the venue for a celebration dinner with guests that will include the Verey family, members of the Stone family who now own the business, former gardeners at Barnsley House and sculptor Simon Verity, whose work is in the garden at Barnsley House.
The Barnsley Festival on May 19 from 10.30am to 5pm will have 13 open gardens, including Barnsley House, Barnsley Park with parkland that was landscaped in the 18th century, and Herbs for Healing, which is run by Rosemary Verey’s daughter, Davina Wynne-Jones. Her granddaughter, Amy Verey, will be creating a wedding bouquet reflecting Mrs Verey’s and acknowledging the wedding of Prince Harry the same day.
The Festival will also have a cricket match, jazz band, teas, craft and plant stalls, maypole dancing and a choir and organ recital.
For more information, visit the website.