Hortus: Arts and Crafts in the Lake District

After the pick-up at Lancaster Station, we enjoy a light lunch in a local inn before heading on to the rare and wonderful garden at Gresgarth Hall. This is the country home of Lady Arabella Lennox-Boyd, an Italian born garden designer with an international reputation who espouses Arts & Crafts principles in her garden creations. Every detail is carefully thought through with much to see at all times of the year, including the productive kitchen garden. We travel on to the Lakeside Hotel with time to settle in before an evening meal together. This is our base for the next three nights.

We begin the day with an exclusive visit to Blackwell, where Mackay Baille Scott created a beautifully decorated home with simply terraced gardens that overlook the views. After coffee, we travel on to Broad Leys, one of the area’s finest examples of Charles Voysey’s work, demonstrating his method of designing a total work of art both inside and outside. Now the home of the Windermere Motor Boat Racing Club, we shall be served lunch here overlooking the 7 acre lakeside gardens. After lunch we travel the short distance to Brockhole, designed by local architects Dan Gibson and Thomas Mawson for the Gaddum family. The Dutch style house is surrounded by tightly geometric gardens, leading to more naturalistic planting near the shore.  We shall tour the gardens focussing on both the historic and richly planted elements. Our return journey to the hotel will be via a private launch, allowing us to view these and other secluded gardens from the lakeside.

Today we head north to High Moss, an important Arts & Crafts house featured in Laurence Weaver’s ‘Small Country Houses’. A diamond pattern theme runs throughout the house and garden, and the present owners have continued this motif in their additions to the vegetable and cut flower gardens. They have also added greatly to the variety of woodland shrubs and trees. We will then take a short visit to the twelfth century church of St Kentigern to learn the story of Canon Rawnsley, one of the Lake District’s greatest proponents of land preservation and a founder member of the National Trust. Afterwards we enjoy time at leisure in the market town of Keswick, where there will be an opportunity to discover more about the Keswick School of Industrial Arts. Our afternoon visit takes us to Rydal Hall. This garden combines elements of the eighteenth-century savage picturesque with the Arts & Crafts gardens of Thomas Mawson. These contrast with the surrounding woodland and exemplify the formality of Italianate influences, characteristic of Mawson’s style. We return to the Lakeside Hotel for our final dinner together.

Our final day takes us to Brantwood, the home of John Ruskin, which overlooks Coniston Water. It was here that Ruskin sought solace from the pressures of fame and set about creating a ‘paradise of terraces’, heavily influenced by Dante Alighieri. We will be given a tour of parts of the house as well as exploring the intricate gardens intended by Ruskin for the close observation of nature and philosophical reflection. We end our tour as we began, with a visit to a modern garden influenced by the Arts & Crafts principles. At Yewbarrow House, owner Jonathan Denby has created richly planted south-facing terraces with glorious exotic species. Personal mementos of family mix with Italianate, Japanese and English elements, all overlooking the sensational panorama of Morecambe Bay: miles of tidal sands and glinting sea. Lunch will be served here. Return to Lancaster Railway Station for 16:00 and for those who have left cars, to the Lakeside Hotel for 17:00.