Details of plans for world-class gardens in the grounds of a lost stately home in the northwest have been revealed by the Royal Horticultural Society.
The master plan for the 154-acre site in Salford which will be known as RHS Garden Bridgewater includes a new lake, a water garden with interlocking streams and rocky waterfalls and the reconstruction of the ten-acre walled garden at its heart.
The RHS is collaborating with Peel Land and Property, which owns Worsley New Hall where it will be located, and Salford city council to revitalise the historic estate.
It said that the plans were still at an early stage and subject to planning permission but that it aimed to open to visitors in spring 2019 after the first phase of the project, which will include restoring the walled garden and clearing wooded areas, is complete.
In the longer term the RHS aims to develop the other end of the garden, where formal terraces once dropped from Worsley New Hall to the lake.
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Tom Stuart-Smith, the landscape architect who designed gardens at RHS Wisley, Windsor Castle and Trentham estate in Stoke-on-Trent, was appointed to create the plan in November. He said that much of the estate had been lost but that the huge walled garden, the lake and the “amazing topography” of the terraces remained.
“For me, it’s probably the most exciting thing I’ve done in my career,” he said. “It’s on such an amazing scale, there’s an opportunity to make a really world-class garden here.”
Plans include an extensive perennial meadow with web-like paths and a visitor building and learning centre. The walled garden, one of the largest in the country, will comprise three areas, the outer of which will include a mix of ornamental and productive gardening and a therapeutic garden.
The intermediate garden will concentrate on growing vegetables and fruit while the inner part of the garden will be a flower garden based on the concept of the Paradise garden, with a lily pond at its centre.
The development of RHS Bridgewater is part of a ten-year £160 million investment by the society, which aims to enrich people’s lives through plants.
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Sue Biggs, RHS director-general, said: “It’s fantastic to have found a garden that’s a blank canvas. It will not be a northern Wisley, we want it to be unique to the northwest.”
