ROSANNA JAMES

THE HILLSIDE GARDEN OF SLEIGHT-HOLMEDALE

Where order and disorder reign side by side

For anyone not accustomed to the stark landscape of the North York Moors, it might seem unlikely that the narrow country lanes running between dry-stone walls could ever lead to the threshold of a beautiful garden. The mighty expanse of heather moorland brings to mind the Brontë sisters’ novels Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, driving rain and gloomy houses. On the approach to Sleightholmedale, the avenue of maples with broad, spreading crowns lining the road seems incongruous on a hill otherwise sparsely populated with trees. The maples peter out at the end into a patch of woodland that hugs the slope and tumbles down into the valley.

In this region the landscape changes as quickly as the weather, as becomes clear the moment you peel off the main road and join the lane leading down to Sleightholmedale. The lane becomes increasingly narrower, steeper and more twisting as it descends into a meadow-lined valley with clusters of cattle and sheep. The scene appears even lusher against the backdrop of the bleak higher-lying moorland. Sleightholmedale, on the edge of the North York Moors National Park, is one of the most picturesque of Yorkshire’s dales and it feels like a world apart.

With its long frontage punctuated by numerous gables and chimneys, Sleightholmedale Lodge is indisputably the lord of the valley. Nestled into the hillside, the south-facing, imposing yet homely building resembles a small hunting lodge and looks out over woodland which gives way to fields sloping down to the Hodge Beck river. The house was built in 1889 by Lord Feversham, whose main residence, Duncombe Park, was in nearby Helmsley. He gifted the estate, including a farm and associated buildings, as a wedding present to his daughter Lady Ulrica. Over a century has passed since then and Sleightholmedale Lodge is now in the hands of the fourth generation who live here and work the land. The house’s future is ensured by an unusual family tradition whereby the estate is transferred to the next generation during the lifetime of the present incumbents rather then after their death. Just how the family finds time to garden in addition to running the farm is baffling, yet gardening is clearly in their blood. And besides, this is no ordinary family garden: it has opened its gates to the public for more than sixty years and is one of the jewels in the National Garden Scheme’s crown.

UNIQUE ENCLOSURE

Unusual is the byword at Sleightholmedale. Nothing is quite as it seems, including the layout of the garden. There is no grand entrance, and at first sight it is not obvious where the garden ends and the landscape begins, as the two merge seamlessly together. It is only when you shift your attention away from the delightful house and start to explore that you realize why Sleightholmedale Lodge garden is so highly regarded, for here on the slope to the right, spread out over 0.4 hectares/1 acre between the building and the road above, is a garden like no other.

It is enclosed on just two sides by adjoining high brick walls, one fronting the road to the north and the other the wood to the west, creating an unorthodox semi-walled garden that opens up to the valley. But it is the way in which the levels have been mastered that really sets the garden apart. Rather than carving the hillside up into terraces, as is so often the case, it has been left as a single sloping plane. A grid of paths defines the garden’s spaces, with rustic wooden trellises running parallel to them and serving to underscore the strong linear quality of the design. Three paths shoot down the slope, each interrupted at intervals by single steps, which act as both physical and visual brakes. The downhill paths are crossed in turn by three horizontal paths following the contours of the slope, one parallel to the top wall, one running through the middle of the garden and one near the bottom. This layout carves the garden into long, narrow borders along the perimeter and a cruciform of four large squares filled with flowers and crops.

The garden was designed over a two-year period by Lady Ulrica’s husband, Brigadier General Everard Baring, after his return from India in 1905. During his time as military secretary to Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, he would have encountered Islamic-style Mogul gardens as well as the hillside gardens of the country’s cool, mountain stations. Both were to influence the design of his own garden, with which he laid the foundations of a passion that would be passed down the generations.

Judging by the beautiful paving to be found at intervals in the garden, Everard Baring was not interested in plants alone. The simple Yorkstone paths, contained within raised edging stones, are a perfect foil to the planting, while the three square patios positioned against the perimeter walls have an appealing aesthetic with echoes of Islamic gardens. Each is a variation on a theme: a diagonal cross paved in stone, infilled with bricks and completed either with a central stone square or rondel. One of the patios acts as a plinth for the summer house at the top of the central axis, and all three add incidental colour and shape to the garden, mirroring the texture of the brick walls. In the lower part of the semi-walled garden, however, geometric paving serves a more prominent role as the central feature. Here, Baring placed a circle within a square, subdividing it into eight segments where planting alternated with brick paving laid in a herringbone pattern, revolving around an octagonal Yorkstone centre. Hybrid Tea roses once filled the beds but these have been replaced by perennials and annuals.

The rockery, laid out by Rosanna’s mother Helen Baring, with Scotch rose (Rosa spinosissima) in the foreground.

Paths rather than terraces subdivide the upper part of the semi-walled garden. The flower beds are large and impressive, and the plants appear to have a free rein.

PLANTING FRAMEWORK

The formal structure of paths and trellis provides a valuable framework for the garden’s exuberant planting. In the words of Rosanna James, Everard Baring’s granddaughter and up until 2013 custodian of Sleightholmedale Lodge, ‘l’ordre avec le désordre’ (order and disorder) reign side by side here. This is an apt description, since the planting does not appear to follow conventional rules. Instead, there is a wonderfully dynamic mix-and-match approach in which perennials and roses are partnered with a constantly changing selection of bedding plants and bulbs. There is also no deliberate policy of arranging plants by height, nor for that matter by colour; on these issues, happenstance takes the lead. Rosanna James has a particular penchant for annuals, which she uses to fill gaps between delphiniums, mullein (Verbascum), bellflowers (Campanula) and hollyhocks (Alcea rosea). While she does not stick to a defined colour scheme, as colour in itself is not of particular interest to her, it is vital in her view to know whether a plant will thrive in Sleightholmedale’s harsh conditions at an altitude of 116m/380ft. Rosanna James is also constantly thinking about maintenance – after all, 0.4 hectares/1 acre of flowers and vegetables will not look after themselves – and on this subject she takes a pragmatic approach. As she explains, ‘men of the land’ rather than professional gardeners help tend the garden, which stretches beyond the semi-walled garden and covers a total of 1.2 hectares/3 acres. Retired blacksmith Bob Pettitt has turned out to be a gifted gardener and at over eighty years old is still propagating plants. Many plants are raised on site, making use of the existing stock and preserving old-fashioned varieties planted when the garden was first laid out.

Rather like a firework display, this border is exploding with the colours of yellow mullein (Verbascum), purple hollyhocks (Alcea rosea), red crocosmia and a pink ‘Hiawatha’ rose over the pergola in the background.

DELPHINIUM TIME

Rosanna James keeps a watchful eye over everything and is actively involved herself. Her favourite time in the garden is the first week of July, before deadheading begins, when the delphiniums look glorious in front of the summer house. Among these, the cultivars grown by Rosanna James’s grandfather are particularly pampered and cherished. So is the Wichurana rambling Rosa ‘Minnehaha’, introduced in 1905, with full, deep-pink blooms; and R. ‘Hiawatha’, a late-flowering single rose dating from 1904, with a white eye and ring of yellow stamens to its scarlet blooms. Rosa ‘American Pillar’ and R. ‘Albertine’ also thrive here, festooning the timber trellises. Peter Beales rather than David Austin is Rosanna James’s rose breeder of choice because their selections seem able to withstand Sleightholmedale’s climatic conditions.

Continuity is as important in this garden as change, each generation adding their own touches without destroying the ambience of the whole. Rosanna James’s mother, Helen Baring, made a significant contribution to the garden during her tenure, extending it to the east beyond the boundaries of her father’s semi-walled garden. She built a terraced rockery in front of the house, and in the 1940s planted ornamental cherries in the sloping paddock next to the high garden walls, where she later added hundreds of narcissi. These have naturalized to form dense drifts, a magnificent display that vies for attention with the dainty canary-yellow flowered Narcissus bulbocodium along the path mown diagonally through the long grass up the slope. Here and there burst patches of bluebells, escapees from the neighbouring woodland, which enliven the scene and lend it an abstract quality. It is this mixture of naturalized and cultivated plants, together with the generous proportions of the garden, that is so captivating.

The garden seems to flow seamlessly out into the bucolic landscape of the valley. Rosanna’s award-winning cows are just as much a part of the scenery as the plants.

However, the best is yet to come. On the lower slopes below the semi-walled garden are carpets of scarlet Tulipa sprengeri, which have naturalized over the last fifty years. Rosanna James continues to take great care of these areas initially planted by her mother from just a few bulbs. She has also introduced some favourites of her own. About twenty-five years ago she was given a ‘jumble’ of seeds containing Himalayan blue poppies (Meconopsis grandis), which naturalized and formed the beginnings of a remarkable collection. Now, in addition to intense blue, there are also purple, yellow and pink varieties of Himalayan poppy growing in the dappled shade beneath trees in the wilder sections of the lower slopes.

WILD PLANTS

As a young girl Rosanna James was already interested in wild plants. This early spark, together with the legacy left by her grandfather and the example set by her mother, have all influenced her work in the garden. She has a ‘start again’ list of areas that have got out of control, which helps her keep track of the work to be done in the next gardening year. Weeds are a terrible problem. They have been known to quite literally swamp her, and names such as enchanter’s nightshade, dog’s mercury, vetch and mare’s tail roll off her tongue as if she had known them a lifetime. Only by radically clearing an area does Rosanna James stand a chance of gaining the upper hand. She has a no-nonsense approach to gardening and knows exactly what is suitable and what is not. She hates sculptures in the garden because ‘why make a feature when the whole landscape is one?’ Nor does Rosanna James pay any attention to trends. She simply does what she likes, how she likes, providing it is in keeping with the spirit of the garden.

Himalayan poppies are one of Rosanna James’s passions. Here Meconopsis grandis mingle with aquilegias and the white pompoms of Allium stipitatum ‘Mount Everest’.

The garden’s spectacular show of colour begins on the lower slopes in late spring, with a rare display of naturalized Tulipa sprengeri interspersed with bluebells.

As she herself concedes, she is fortunate in having a good eye for composition. The overall effect is far more important to her than the detail, as you might expect. Having grown up in the country, she has an innate feel for nature. She takes control with a gentle hand, works with what is already there and knows full well that gardens continue to develop. And because it is so important that the next generation has the chance to contribute, she recently handed over the reins to her son Patrick and his wife. Her young grandchildren will grow up surrounded by a wonderful garden and help keep the magic of this special place alive.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

	Constantly think about care and maintenance.
	Seek help from farm workers capable of gardening instinctively and in tune with their surroundings.
	Focus on the overall effect.
	Try to raise as many plants as possible on site, as they will usually be more robust than nursery-bought stock.

SIGNATURE PLANTS

	Blue delphiniums, no matter what kind as long as they are hardy. Old cultivars from the turn of the twentieth century that have proved they are reliable include Delphinium Pacific hybrids.
	Sea holly such as Eryngium alpinum ‘Amethyst’, shown with sneezeweed (Helenium).
	All varieties of Himalayan poppy, especially Meconopsis napaulensis.
	Annuals, which make excellent fillers and provide splashes of colour.