Plans have been submitted by University of Evansville, to restore the walled kitchen gardens in the grounds of Harlaxton Manor. It includes a visitors’ café, toilets and other facilities for visitors including a play area .
There are also plan to restore the gardener’s house.
The walled kitchen garden has been unused for many years due to three factors – the greenhouse is in a dangerous condition, the gardener’s house has been used as private accommodation by the head gardener and the cost of maintaining the gardens has been too much.
The application also says: “The conservation and repair of the historic buildings and garden walls will reverse the decay and prevent the risk of further deterioration. The works will remove the inappropriate alterations which have occurred and return the buildings to something closer to their original state.
“The buildings will be brought back into active use and this will help to give them life and ensure that they are maintained and protected for the future.”
The formal garden is a collection of classical European features and the six acre walled garden, probably the most ornate of its kind in Britain, if not Europe.
The then almost derelict gardens were restored by TV gardener Alan Mason in the mid-1990s, who lived on the site with his wife, TV journalist Marylyn Webb.
It was within the walled garden that Alan was able to create more plant interest which was not possible within the Manor’s classical gardens, and he designed a series of show gardens, housing collections of rare and unusual plants.
This led to Alan presenting a ten part series for Central Television “Secrets from the Secret Garden” which was shown in 1997.
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