Our five favourite gardens to visit in Northumberland

Alnwick Garden

Alnwick Garden is grand, imaginative and ambitious. Designed by Jacques and Peter Wirtz, to the Duchess of Northumberland’s vision, it’s been a real boon for the local community over the last 20 years. Stroll through the tranquil cherry orchard, gape at the grand cascade, get lost in the bamboo labyrinth and don’t miss the water sculptures in the serpent garden. With 12 acres to explore, over 4,000 plant varieties to discover, and thousands of seasonal blooms, there’s plenty to surprise and delight year round. If you need a pep me up, stop for sandwiches and afternoon tea in the Pavilion or a hearty lunch in the Treehouse Restaurant.  

Cragside House, Gardens and Estate

This Arts & Crafts House is impressive, filled with cutting-edge Victorian gadgets and inventions like hydro-electrics and hydraulics. Lord and Lady Armstrong were pioneering in their vision to transform a rocky Northumberland heathland into an efficient landscape to create the first house in the world to be lit by electricity. The grounds are no less remarkable and comprise a three-acre formal garden overlooking the verdant Coquet Valley, a grand rock garden with a network of rhododendron-lined paths and the Pinetum, a towering collection of non-native trees, planted to recreate a North American forest landscape. Looked after by the National Trust, there’s a tea room for refreshments and a shop selling local gifts, treats and souvenirs.  

Howick Hall

Ancestral home of the Grey family, the 5th Earl and his wife created the gardens in the 1980s, and there are 65 acres of grounds circling an imposing stately home. The gardens are planted in an informal, natural style with swathes of colour bursting into life each spring, borders and rockeries overflowing with summer plants and a wild bog garden near the pond. The arboretum, lined by magnificent rhododendrons, is extraordinary: the trees have been grown from numerous seed gathering expeditions in far-flung corners of the world, from China to Russia to Tasmania. This is a quiet and beautiful garden, with charming woodland walks, benches whenever you need to stop, and an abundance of birdlife. Fun fact: the famous tea is named after the 2nd Earl, who commissioned a Chinese mandarin to create the distinctive blend. Stop off at the tea house for a cup! 

The Garden Station

There’s a verdant gem hidden deep in Langley Woods. Halfway along the disused railway line that ran from Allendale to Hexham until 1950, is a pretty Victorian Station House and a charming tree-filled garden. The arches of the old stone bridge elegantly frame the space, with a track running between them bordered by plants that thrive in woodland conditions. It’s a peaceful garden with some interesting sculptures to discover, an easy woodland stroll and a tea room in the green-hued station house. The gardens are open daily, unless they’re hosting an event, and the fairtrade café is open every Saturday and Sunday. At nearby Allen Banks and Staward Gorge there are a handful of stunning walks through ancient woodland and along the Tarn.   

Bide-a-Wee Cottage Garden

Open mid-April to mid-September

Mark has spent the last 25 years or so transforming a former sandstone quarry into a magical garden oasis. Originally a bare and exposed patch of land with some rough grass and gorse and an outer drystone boundary wall, it has taken him years of planning, hard work and nurturing to create something that Gardeners World called ‘very special’. It’s richly planted with drifts of perennials and wildflowers, ferns, trees, shrubs and grasses, all imaginatively arranged among sandstone rock and water features. The nursery is impressive and has over 500 high quality plants, grasses, ferns and shrubs, all grown in the garden, for you to take home. 

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