The Gardens

Sixteen acres of garden have given the opportunity to continue to explore the possibilities of design started by Ruskin and continued by his cousin Joan Severn .
    The earliest of Ruskins experiments, the Professors Garden& has been re-created using his original ethos of productivity and beauty. This garden, the size of a traditional cottagers garden was created to show that the production of a small garden could be used not only to supplement the diet of the cottagers but to fuel the inner need for beauty and creation.
    The Zig-zag Garden is the only garden for which any plans have been discovered, these indicate that originally Ruskin intended to have steps running through the centre of the terraces but no evidence of these have been found. The garden is designed around Dante’s Purgatoria, rising from the River of Sticks to the First circle of Paradise which is called the Painters Glade.
    North of the house is the Linton Fern Garden, named after Ruskins predecessor who published a delightful little book on The Ferns of The English Lakes. Currently this garden is home to three hundred plus ferns and the collection is still growing .
    The house itself is surrounded by small lawns, gardens and planters, there are also seasonal plants for sale from the main entrance Of note is The Lodge Yard, a small area designed to show what can be done with the imaginative use of containers.
    Toward the Lake are a series of gardens from a wild flower meadow to the Hortus Inclusus (a terraced herb garden that is currently under development)

Maps of the garden and estate are available on the following pages but be warned that the file sizes are large (80k) and may take a while to download on slower modems. The choice is yours!  Garden map    Estate map

Brantwood   Sitemap   Woodland&Coppice  Ramblings of a Gnome   Sam's Page   Alan Moore

Links to other sites:

The official Brantwood