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The Weston Walled Garden

Inspirational gardens and community spaces make this iconic 11-acre walled garden the horticultural heart of RHS Garden Bridgewater

Interesting facts...

  • Size The RHS Chelsea Flower Show site could fit into the Weston Walled Garden, they’re approximately the same size
  • Funding The Garfield Weston Foundation generously supported the restoration of the walls
The Weston Walled Garden before work began

Walled garden history

The Weston Walled Garden is one of the largest Victorian walled gardens in the UK. In its original incarnation it contained a series of kitchen gardens built to service Worsley New Hall. A team of gardeners would have managed the 11-acres, using its sheltered location to grow fruit and vegetables.

Although the Hall is long gone, the inner and outer walls of the original walled garden were repurposed first as a nursery and latterly a garden centre, escaping demolition. Painstakingly restored, it is now the horticultural heart of Bridgewater, given new life with a series of wonderful gardens and exuberant borders co-created by award-winning landscape designers and our own RHS staff.
Layout of the Paradise Garden within the inner walls

Layers of interest

The Weston Walled Garden consists of an inner walled garden, divided by a central wall into two halves. The Paradise Garden occupies one half and Kitchen Garden the other. A series of connecting gardens wrap around the perimeter, and are enclosed by a lower-level outer wall.

Within the outer wall is a series of gardens dedicated to serving our local community. So far these include the Peel Learning Garden, Community Grow and Community Wellbeing. The Orchard Gardens, which incorporate The Orchard and Bee and Butterfly Garden, curve around the Gothic architecture of Garden Cottage.
The Old Frameyard is used for propagating, growing on and trialling plants

A growing space

The Old Frameyard occupies the northern portion of the outer gardens. It makes visible the behind-the-scenes workings of the garden to visitors. The space includes a large sustainably heated Plant House for propagating, overwintering and growing plants for use around the wider garden.

The eastern portion of the walled garden is our focus over the next few years. Our Community Coppice has already been planted, the national rhubarb collection located here and stunning Hot Borders created. Furthermore, two Show Gardens from RHS Flower Show Tatton Park 2021 have been brought to Bridgewater: Garden of Resilience by Leon Davies and Windrush Garden designed by Dawn Evans.
The restored walls of the inner walled garden

Restoring the walls

The walled garden has stood for around 180 years and was showing signs of age. With generous funding from the Garfield Weston Foundation the walls have been restored, with 80% of the original 100,000 non-standard bricks salvaged.

The central portion of wall, where the glasshouses are located, was originally heated via underground pipes coming from the chimney stack. Warm air was fed into the void between the two layers of bricks and from here warmth emanated through the south face of the wall to warm the fruit trees and glasshouses within. The eastern and western walls were heated on occasion with ‘fires lit at the base’.
Pathways and planting beds come to life in the Weston Walled Garden

Creating the infrastructure

Once work on the walls had been completed, the infrastructure in the Weston Walled Garden was created. Almost 3km of pathway was laid and planting beds, rills and water features were built. An irrigation system, hidden below ground, was installed to allow the gardens above to flourish.

The team at RHS Garden Bridgewater then began to grade, improve and settle more than 6,000 cubic metres of soil into the new planting beds, before tens of thousands of plants were added.

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