Alnwick Garden is a complex of

formal garden A formal garden is a garden with a clear structure, geometric shapes and in most cases a symmetrical layout. Its origin goes back to the gardens which are located in the desert areas of Western Asia and are protected by walls. The style of a forma ...

s adjacent to

Alnwick Castle Alnwick Castle () is a castle and country house in Alnwick in the English county of Northumberland. It is the seat of the 12th Duke of Northumberland, built following the Norman conquest and renovated and remodelled a number of times. It is a G ...

in the town of

Alnwick Alnwick ( ) is a market town in Northumberland, England, of which it is the traditional county town. The population at the 2011 Census was 8,116. The town is on the south bank of the River Aln, south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Scottish bor ...

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land ...

, England. The gardens have a long history under the

dukes of Northumberland Duke of Northumberland is a noble title that has been created three times in English and British history, twice in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of Great Britain. The current holder of this title is Ralph Percy, 12th Duke o ...

, but fell into disrepair until revived at the turn of the 21st century. The garden now features various themed plantings designed around a central water cascade. The revival of the gardens led to several public disputes between the Duchess of Northumberland and various garden experts concerning preservation and the use of public funds. The garden now belongs to a charitable trust, which is separate from Northumberland Estates, although the 12th Duke of Northumberland donated the 42-acre (17 ha) site and contributed £9 million towards redevelopment costs.

History

The first

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

was laid down in 1750 by the 1st Duke of Northumberland, who employed

Capability Brown Lancelot Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783), more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English gardener and landscape architect, who remains the most famous figure in the history of the English lan ...

, the celebrated Northumberland gardener, to

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

the parkland adjoining Alnwick Museum. The 3rd Duke was a plant collector, and led a century of development at Alnwick – he brought seeds from over the world, and pineapples were raised in hothouses. In the middle of the 19th century, the 4th Duke created an Italianate garden featuring a large conservatory, and at the end of the century, the gardens were at their grandest, with yew topiary, avenues of limes and acres of flowers. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

's "''

Dig for Victory Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I ...

''" campaign, the garden was turned over and provided food, and soon afterwards the austerity of the 20th century saw the garden fall into disrepair. It was closed as a working garden in 1950.

Redevelopment

Redevelopment of the garden was instigated by

Jane Percy, Duchess of Northumberland Isobel Jane Miller Percy, Duchess of Northumberland (née Richard; born 11 May 1958), is a British aristocrat and businesswoman. She has served as Lord Lieutenant of Northumberland since 2009, and is best known for redeveloping The Alnwick Ga ...

in 1997, and has been led by

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

landscape designers Jacques and Peter Wirtz. It is the most ambitious new garden created in the United Kingdom since the Second World War, with a reported total development cost of £42 million. The first phase of redevelopment, opened in October 2001, involved the creation of the cascade and initial planting of the gardens. In 2004 a large 6,000 sq ft (560 m2) tree house complex, including a cafe, was opened. A pavilion and visitor centre designed by Sir Michael Hopkins and

Buro Happold Buro Happold (previously ''BuroHappold Engineering'') is a British professional services firm that provides engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management, and consulting services for buildings, infrastructure, and the environment ...

opened in May 2006, with capacity for 1,000 people. The pavilion and visitor centre feature a

barrel-vaulted A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

gridshell A gridshell is a structure which derives its strength from its double curvature (in a similar way that a fabric structure derives strength from double curvature), but is constructed of a grid or lattice. The grid can be made of any material, ...

roof. The gardens include several water features as well as architectural landscaping,

topiary Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants w ...

and decorative gates.

Poison Garden

A garden featuring intoxicating and

poisonous plants Plants that produce toxins are referred to as poisonous plants. Plants that cause irritation on contact are also described as "poisonous". The toxins in poisonous plants affect herbivores, and deter them from consuming the plants. Plants cannot ...

was added in February 2005. The garden was thought of by the duchess herself, who wanted the garden to have something that was different from other gardens. Species of the Poison Garden include ''

Strychnos nux-vomica ''Strychnos nux-vomica'', the strychnine tree, also known as nux vomica, poison fruit, semen strychnos, and quaker buttons, is a deciduous tree native to India and to southeast Asia. It is a medium-sized tree in the family Loganiaceae that grow ...

'' (source of

strychnine Strychnine (, , US chiefly ) is a highly toxic, colorless, bitter, crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine, when inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the e ...

), hemlock, ''

Ricinus communis ''Ricinus communis'', the castor bean or castor oil plant, is a species of perennial flowering plant in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. It is the sole species in the monotypic genus, ''Ricinus'', and subtribe, Ricininae. The evolution of cas ...

'' (source of harmless

castor oil Castor oil is a vegetable oil pressed from castor beans. It is a colourless or pale yellow liquid with a distinct taste and odor. Its boiling point is and its density is 0.961 g/cm3. It includes a mixture of triglycerides in which about ...

but also deadly

ricin Ricin ( ) is a lectin (a carbohydrate-binding protein) and a highly potent toxin produced in the seeds of the castor oil plant, ''Ricinus communis''. The median lethal dose (LD50) of ricin for mice is around 22 micrograms per kilogram of bo ...

foxglove ''Digitalis'' ( or ) is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennial plants, shrubs, and biennials, commonly called foxgloves. ''Digitalis'' is native to Europe, western Asia, and northwestern Africa. The flowers are tubular in shap ...

, ''

Atropa belladonna ''Atropa belladonna'', commonly known as belladonna or deadly nightshade, is a toxic perennial herbaceous plant in the nightshade family Solanaceae, which also includes tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplant (aubergine). It is native to Europe, ...

'' (commonly called Deadly Nightshade'')'', ''

Brugmansia ''Brugmansia'' is a genus of seven species of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae. They are woody trees or shrubs, with pendulous flowers, and have no spines on their fruit. Their large, fragrant flowers give them their common n ...

'' and ''

Laburnum ''Laburnum'', sometimes called golden chain or golden rain, is a genus of two species of small trees in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae. The species are ''Laburnum anagyroides''—common laburnum and ''Laburnum alpinum''� ...

''. The mission of the Poison Garden also includes

drug education Drug education is the planned provision of information, guidelines, resources, and skills relevant to living in a world where psychoactive substances are widely available and commonly used for a variety of both medical and non-medical purposes, so ...

, with featured plantings of

cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: '' Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternative ...

coca Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. The plant is grown as a cash crop in the Argentine Northwest, Bolivia, ...

and the opium poppy ''

Papaver somniferum ''Papaver somniferum'', commonly known as the opium poppy or breadseed poppy, is a species of flowering plant in the family Papaveraceae. It is the species of plant from which both opium and poppy seeds are derived and is also a valuable orname ...

''. The poison garden is now one of the main reasons that people visit the gardens.

References

External links

*
Poison Garden
website
Guided tour of the Poison Garden by head gardener Trevor Jones
Youtube {{DEFAULTSORT:Alnwick Garden Alnwick Gardens in Northumberland

History

Redevelopment

Poison Garden

See also

References

External links