As spring starts to unfurl, our thoughts turn back to gardening and how we might extend or enhance our plot for year-round effect. Back in 2018 I visited a small walled garden on the island of Lindisfarne, just off the coast of Northumberland in northeast England, that was designed simply to be a summer garden.
Renowned English garden designer Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) was a friend of the equally-renowned architect Edwin Lutyens (he called her ‘Bumps’) and designed this small garden at his invitation, creating it in an area used in previous centuries by soldiers stationed at Lindisfarne Castle – the building Lutyens was renovating for its owner, Edward Hudson, then owner and publisher of Country Life magazine. As Hudson intended to use the property primarily as a summer retreat, the garden was intended to be ‘seen’ only at that time.
Gertrude’s first visit was in 1906 and by 1911 the garden was planted with bright flowers and the stone wall facing the castle lowered, so anyone using the rooms on the landward side of the building could easily see the garden. However, given the distance involved, while it can be said that the castle is a feature of the garden, the garden isn’t really part of the castle, which was built in 1570, and sits like a colourful island amid grassy pastures.
The stone wall is a must in helping plants get away before they get buffeted by the salty winds and the site was chosen by the garrison’s soldiers because it’s out of the building’s shadow and is on a gentle south-facing slope.
Hudson, who spent most of his time in London, sold the castle in 1920 and the garden later fell into disuse. In 2003 the garden was restored to Gertrude Jekyll’s original design by the National Trust which, because of the visitor numbers the roughly 7 square metre garden attracts, has extended the garden’s season by including spring bulbs and early-flowering plants. The original design incorporated culinary herbs, vegetables and fruit trees and these are still, a small, part of the planting.
Apparently Jekyll also planted the crag on which the castle stands. How? By firing seeds at the rock face from a large fowling gun and lowering Harry Walker, a local 7-year-old, in a basket from the Upper Battery to access the difficult ledges!
Diagnosed with myopia, a degenerative eye condition, in 1891 Jekyll saw colours as blurs and it’s said she approached her designs like a painting. The garden at Lindisfarne includes large herbaceous beds with drifts of flowers with plants including sweetpeas, hollyhocks, phlox, roses (including ‘Gertrude Jekyll’), fuchsias, helianthus, sea buckthorn, poppies, larkspur and scabiosa. A sign in the garden says the planting plan follows Jekyll’s ‘very closely, but is not exact’.
Jekyll was the first woman to be awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour of the Royal Horticultural Society, the highest award for British horticulturists, in 1897. Her tombstone was designed by Lutyens.
Lindisfarne Island, also known as Holy Island, is accessible only twice every 24 hours at low tide.
Sandra's Garden 