When the Royal Horticultural Society opened a new garden in Salford back in May it got a lot of attention and a lot of visitors. Spread across 154 acres of the grounds belonging to the old Worsley New Hall estate, it’s more than just a new outside space. The garden has been designed to aid the environment and the health and wellbeing of the local community as well as providing food for the restaurant.
I got to make my first visit on a cloudy January day. There were far fewer people than there would have been in the summer, though it was still quite busy. For local people, it’s worth buying an annual pass which enables you to visit regularly and watch as the gardens evolve and change through the seasons. You can pop in for a quick walk or just for coffee and cake in the restaurant no matter the time of year or the weather.
But what if you live further away and so have to make a special effort to get there? And if you’re paying the £11.50 daily entrance fee you’re probably wanting to get more than a quick stroll for your money. So, if you’re not a local and you don’t have an annual pass, is it really worth visiting the RHS Garden Bridgewater in winter?
Is it really worth visiting the RHS Garden Bridgewater in winter?
Despite the gardens looking very different to how I imagine they will be in summer when flowers will be in full bloom and trees will have their leaves, I still enjoyed my couple of hours wandering round. The stark wintry look really is beautiful in its own right. And although it was a cloudy day, the winter light was gorgeous.
Due to Covid restrictions all visits have to be booked online at the moment. After parking and walking to the large building that holds the shop, restaurant and toilets as well as the reception area, it was really quick and easy to get our tickets checked and within a few minutes we were were walking out into the gardens.
I’d collected a map at reception which showed various routes we could take to get the most out of the different areas of the garden. The friend I was with had been several times before and so led me along the route she thought was best and explained things to me along the way.
The estate originally belonged to third Duke of Bridgewater and the canal which bears his name runs alongside. My friend told me that when Queen Victoria had visited in 1851 the canal had been dyed blue in her honour. It’s not blue anymore of course though it wasn’t possible to get close enough to actually check as the area alongside was closed off. This is because it’s one of the areas currently being developed and when finished will form yet another part of the gardens.
The Bridgewater Canal is sometimes described as England’s first canal.
Named after its owner, Francis Egerton the third Duke of Bridgewater who built the Canal to transport coal from his mines at Worsley to the industrial areas of Manchester, the Bridgewater Canal was the forerunner of canal networks.
Opened on 17th July 1761, the Bridgewater Canal has a special place in history as the first canal in Britain to be built without following an existing watercourse, and so became a model for those that followed it.
Affectionately known as the “Dukes Cut” the Bridgewater Canal revolutionised transport in this country and marked the beginning of the golden canal era which followed from 1760 to 1830.
The Bridgewater Canal website
We started our walk by strolling through the trees and grassy areas and alongside ponds and little streams. Though some of this area is in the process of being turned into a Chinese style garden, much of it is being left untamed. Weeds and wildlife friendly areas where bugs and bees and birds can thrive are all part of the plan.
As well natural wildlife the RHS Garden Bridgewater Garden is also home to small herd of black Berkshire pigs. I wasn’t able to get close enough to them to get a good picture but they seemed content rummaging around in a field of mud.
The pigs are natural foragers and are moved around so they can spend time in different parts of the garden digging up and eating roots. They provide a natural form of ecologically sound ploughing as well as manure. There are plans to turn the muddy field they are currently ‘working on’ into a arboretum.
In amongst the trees we found a children’s play area and this rather cute storytelling area. Tree stumps circle a firepit and a ‘throne’ for the storyteller is to one side.
As part of RHS Garden Bridgewater’s community outreach, 7,000 local schoolchildren a year will get free access to this natural learning resource. This is in addition to free weekly access for local residents.
As the main restaurant can get quite busy, and because it can be a bit of a trek to get back there if all you want is a quick coffee, there are several sitting areas dotted around the garden each with a little coffee bar made from a converted horsebox.
RHS Garden Bridgewater has not only wooded areas and meadows, it also has the one of the largest walled gardens in the UK. The Weston Walled Garden covers 11 acres and originally contained the kitchen gardens which provided produce for Worsley New Hall.
The walled garden has now been split into several different gardens. There’s still a kitchen garden which grows produce for use in the restaurant. The old buildings alongside here have been repurposed as exhibition areas displaying the history of the garden and the plans for the future.
Yet other parts are being developed to serve the local community. There is a learning garden with different ecological zones designed to show how plants adapt to different environmental conditions. This part of the garden has sensory as well as edible plants and some rather clever planters on wheels.
The community garden has hexagonal planters of different heights and sizes. These create a honeycomb effect which reflects the ‘worker bee’ symbol of Manchester’s industrial heritage. Different local community groups have been allocated parts of this garden to look after.
A part of the walled garden that really interested me was the Community Wellbeing Garden. This part of the garden has been designed with health and wellbeing in mind. This area will be a space for music, yoga and meditation. Interestingly, people can be referred to this garden by their health practitioners.
Greater Manchester became the first city in the UK to take control of its health budget back in 2015. This gave the opportunity for innovation in health care and a ‘social prescribing’ project was launched. Patients are referred by their GP as part of the project and are given help to improve their health and wellbeing through nature-based therapies. RHS Garden Bridgewater even has its own therapeutic gardener.
The Paradise Garden, also within the walls of the Weston walled Garden is reminiscent of some of the earliest gardens found in the Middle East, Mediterranean and Asia.
A 70 square meter lily pond is fed by a narrow manmade stream which reminded me of the falaj irrigation systems I saw in Oman.
All of these gardens were quite sparse on my visit, which is only to be expected when visiting RHS Garden Bridgewater in winter of course. I quite liked it though as I was able to better appreciate the layout and design of the spaces.
For example, I could clearly see the canes which have been set up to support future plants. Along with the cane type supports there are also several metal towers which fulfil the same purpose. These represent the industrial past of the area and looked quite striking. I liked the contrast between them and the canes, but don’t think I’d have been able to appreciate them so much if they were covered with greenery.
Feeling hungry, it was time to leave the gardens to walk down the long avenue back to the main building to the restaurant. The range of hot food and cakes all looked wonderful. I only had a bowl of soup, which was delicious, but I really want to come back to try a full meal at some point (and to try to the cake of course).
So to answer my original question, is it worth visiting the RHS Bridgewater Gardens in winter? My answer has to be yes. The gardens look very different in winter but as you can see they’re still quite beautiful. And as the gardens are a work in progress it will be worth making repeat visits over the next few years to see the new areas as they are completed, so you could visit in winter and then go back in summer as well.
To book tickets you’ll need to visit the RHS Garden Bridgewater website.
Have you been to RHS Bridgewater? Do you agree that it’s worth visiting RHS Garden Bridgewater in the winter? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Books to read that are relevant to your visit
RHS Garden Bridgewater: The Making of a Garden by Phil McCann
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