Cresswell Walled Garden in Northumberland Reopens
We discover Northumberland's newest hidden gem
A historic site that was lost for generations has been given a new lease of life thanks to the efforts of the volunteers at The Cresswell Pele Tower Project in Northumberland. What began a decade ago as a project to restore the ruined tower in the coastal town of Cresswell soon expanded as a hidden walled garden was discovered to be part of the original lease. We caught up with volunteer co-ordinator Steve Lowe to find out more.
Although a welcome surprise to the team, the state of the garden made it a challenging project to tackle. ‘When we took on the garden it was at the same time as Pele Tower. The garden was overgrown, infested with weeds and had loads of scrap in it. There was only one building inside that we could see, and that was half demolished with no pathways,’ Steve explains. ’It was also full of rubbish, and we took at least two large dumping bags of asbestos out. We found more than 200 bin lids in there, as well as loads of concrete, brick and metal work.’ A lesser team would have baulked at such a monumental challenge, but Steve and the other volunteers relished the chance to return the walled garden to its former glory.
As the area was so overgrown and neglected, unearthing the original features of the garden proved difficult. ‘Once we’d got the tower restored and opened, we moved onto the garden. This was about four years ago and essentially we just set out to see what we could find,’ he says. ‘We were faced with all these weeds and not knowing really what to do, we just cracked on and started clearing all the material so that we could at least see what we were working with.’
Soon, thanks to plenty of hard work and sweat, the original garden began to reveal itself to the team. ‘We were pleased to find something that to some might not seem all that significant, but was to us – the path edging of the garden,’ says Steve. ‘The path edging is made out of sandstone and is shown on the 1850 map, but thereafter on every subsequent edition, there’s no paths shown whatsoever. We managed to trace that down and in fact find that it gave us the layout of the garden.’
As work continued, Steve and the volunteers began to uncover more gems in the garden and learned more about its history. ‘When we were waiting for the contractors to come in, we dug a small ditch and found a brick that we could actually date back to 1909 and we followed that up with another trench to see if there was anything else there. Lo and behold, we stumbled on the original walls for the garden! What we now know is that the garden is actually contemporary with the manor house that was built next to the Pele Tower in 1750. So this garden suddenly got 200 years older than we originally thought it was.’
With the knowledge of what the garden had been in its heyday, volunteers began in earnest to move plants in – with more than a little help from the local community. ‘As soon as people knew we had a garden we started getting donations from all over the place. It’s fair to say that we’ve hardly spent anything on plants because of the generosity of the community, because a huge amount of them have come from other people’s gardens. What’s actually evolved is a really lovely and exciting mix of heights, shapes and colours, and we’re really pleased with the results.’
Partly in homage to the garden’s original purpose as a kitchen garden for the adjacent hall, and partly at the suggestion of the local community, the team made sure that as many fruit-bearing plants are included as possible. ‘We sent our plans in for consultation with the local community and much to our surprise what came back was that everybody wanted an orchard. The vast majority of people in the area remember going in there when they weren’t allowed and scrumping apples when they were young.
‘Rather than going for a bog-standard orchard of apples and pears, we actually went for a medieval theme, inspired by the tower which dates back to the 1300s, so we went for plants that would have been around at that time,’ Steve explains. ‘We have things like greengage, medlar, cobnut, walnut, and various other fruiting plants which will all produce food. The plants are there to produce some kind of food so we can either pass that on to people, sell it or make something out of it.’
As well as an orchard, the community had other requests for the garden. ‘They also said that they wanted a pond and bees. We’re pleased to say that a few weeks ago we got our first beehive and they’ve settled in pretty well. We advertised to see if there would be any interest in learning how to keep bees and we were aiming for six beekeepers, but I’m pleased to say we have 16 on our books now!’
From the isolation of Covid to the battering of Storm Arwen, the road to restoring Cresswell Walled Garden hasn’t been smooth, but with everything finally in place, Steve and the team of volunteers are thrilled to welcome the public into the space. Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, this is a real oasis of calm on the coast. ‘We don’t charge for access (but we do have a donation box for people to support what we do). We do allow dogs on a lead and we do allow children – no lead required! We want this to be a family-friendly space.
‘We also have a volunteer group on a Tuesday and a Thursday morning and we can work around people coming to join in. We’re keen to get people here and particularly to get them involved in what we’re doing, because it’s not our garden, it’s the community’s garden.’
