At York Gate Garden you seem to be witnessing living garden history, without any sense of the faded past glories you sometimes feel, even in the best gardens.
On our first slightly hurried visit, the midday sun was unsparingly harsh and contrasty, making photography a challenge, but we got a good feel for the garden and the loving way it is cared for. I’m sure we’ll be back!
Taking inspiration from Hidcote’s garden rooms and Arts and Crafts style, York Gate was designed by Robin Spencer to make the most of a much smaller space – just an acre. Well defined, decorative paths lead visitors from one garden feature to another, making the garden feel more expansive.
The structure and details of this garden will delight and intrigue anyone on the lookout for inspiration. I fell in love with the stone half seat – it’s just one tiny way the space is made to feel larger than it is.
The garden has well-maintained topiary features that frequently appear in pictures you’ll find online, and many happy plant combinations. Robin’s mum, Sybil, a keen plantswoman, is credited for seeking out unusual plants to add to the mix.
Many of the elements we might expect to see at a major garden can be found at York Gate Garden on a smaller scale: a tiny potting shed, a loggia, a folly or two, a rill garden, herbaceous borders, garden art, creative paving effects, fine examples of cordon pruning, a kitchen and cutting garden and artfully staged views.
Succulents on the patio and in a small glasshouse were looking wonderful in the sun, but the more demure flowering plants stole my heart, such as the woodland geraniums, ferns, linaria and Turkscap lilies.
My sweetheart had a great time talking to the gardener whose insights and dedication impressed him, while I walked around again, then lingered in the areas nearest to the house, admiring some covetable garden accessories including a large copper kettle, and some fine stone pieces including planters, a dolphin and a bird bath.
Even on a first visit, you sense a ritual underpins everything here, as if some things always are that way: not just the topiary, but the tender plants that must be lifted annually and replanted back outside when the late frosts are over; the feeling that this potted staghorn fern has its own nook. Gardening at its most intensive can be like that.
If you feel tempted to visit, York Gate Garden is actually in Leeds. Its full address is:
Back Church Lane, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS16 8DW
The garden was bequeathed to Perennial, the Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Society, so by calling in to see it, you’ll be supporting the charity. The garden opens five afternoons each week during spring and summer. Please check the details on Perennial’s website as they might not be the days you’re expecting!
Susan Rushton 
Loved everything about this garden and your photographs really made it sing.
Thank you. I’m glad you liked it.
Well. Who knew? I lived in Leeds for years and never even heard of this garden. Still, it’s never too late….. Thank you!
I only heard of it recently. We were thinking of staying in Leeds for a night and I found it while checking out things we might like to explore.
What a lovely place. Thank you for sharing your visit 😀
My pleasure!
Very nice photos despite the challenges of a midday sun. (Isn’t’t there a song about who goes out in the midday sun? 😎)
It’s us isn’t it?
The best gardens are magical, providing a surprise now and then among the beauty one expects. This looks as though it has all those things.
It did have quite a few surprises. 🙂
Thank you for these, what a pretty garden! I love Arts and Crafts, and this is such an accessible, small-scale garden.
Small ones often have an integrity that is charming in itself – this one certainly did.
What a great garden they have and you made some nice images of it, Susan.
Thanks, Steve.
I love your notion of ritual as underpinning. There is a substance to this place, a heft, that is nicely explained by that suggestion of ritual. Are those poppies with the lavender? That’s one snappy combination. And the photo with the burgundy underside of the floppy leaves — a gorgeous study! I think one could find sanity here. Thank you!
Yes, bold Californian poppies. There were some double red opium-type poppies too, but if I’d have posted the red, the green and the sunshine, I’d have needed to be able to hand out sunglasses.
I’m a great fan of Arts & Crafts furniture so it was lovely to see the garden style from that era. I’ve never seen Lillies that rich a shade of dark pink – utterly delightful.
I have seen wicker garden seats when I used to subscribe to British Country Living magazine many years ago, but have never seen one combined with a stone seat so that was a first (for me also). I don’t think I’ve ever seen any in Australian gardens (or National Trust properties here).
I love seeing the woodland lilies. They always seem so unlikely – like squadrons of plant helicopters flying in formation.
The seat was actually wood and wicker, but the wood is almost hefty enough to be stone.
What a great garden. I really like the Lilium martagon.
That’s one of my favourite plants.