Top kitchen gardens

From keeping rare breeds of chickens to growing organic Georgian prickly cucumbers, we care for many kitchen gardens. What's more, some of the sustainable and seasonal produce grown in our kitchen gardens is used in the dishes served in our cafés.

Various edible plants growing in the Kitchen Garden in June at Trengwainton Garden, Cornwall

The kitchen garden, Attingham Park, Shropshire 

This two-acre 18th-century kitchen garden is feast of surprises. You’ll find some intriguing vegetables and fruit, from the blue coco bean to the prickly cucumber.

Explore Attingham's kitchen garden
Cold frames and a glasshouse in the Kitchen Garden at Beningbrough Hall, North Yorkshire

The kitchen garden, Beningbrough Hall, Yorkshire 

As one of the first kitchen gardens to be renovated, this Victorian walled garden is home to a large variety of produce, including over 50 varieties of apple. Also, keep your eyes open for plants like liquorice, grapes and figs.

Explore Beningbrough's Victorian garden
The kitchen garden at Chartwell, a National Trust property in Kent

The kitchen garden, Chartwell, Kent 

From seasonal fruit and veg to bright, beautiful flowers and clucking chickens, this 1920s walled garden gives us an intimate piece of history.

Discover Chartwell's walled garden
The glasshouses in the Kitchen Garden at Clumber Park

The kitchen garden, Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire 

Originally home to the Dukes of Newcastle, this kitchen garden is home to the longest glass house in our care. It also has 100 varieties of rhubarb, rocambole garlic and scorzonera, as well as a blue potato.

Explore the kitchen garden at Clumber Park
A bench in Hughenden's walled garden

The walled garden, Hughenden, Buckinghamshire 

Uniquely set on a gentle slope, this sheltered garden is perfect for growing apricots, fig, pears and an old traditional English damson plum – the Aylesbury prune.

Visit the kitchen garden at Hughenden
Gardeners working in the walled garden

The kitchen garden, Knightshayes, Devon 

There’s always an abundance of fruit and vegetables growing in this fairy-tale turreted kitchen garden. It’s home to a vast collection of crops including over 102 varieties of heritage tomatoes.

Stroll around the kitchen garden at Knightshayes
A view from the bottom of our veg garden

The kitchen garden, Sissinghurst Castle, Kent 

A world-famous garden in its own right, this kitchen garden was created by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson and it's more than just a few vegetables.

Visit the historic veg garden at Sissinghurst
The restored kitchen garden at Tatton Park, Cheshire

The kitchen garden, Tatton Park, Cheshire 

As a truly living piece of history, the garden produces varieties that were grown before 1900, including ‘Scarlet Emperor’ runner beans, local ‘British Queen’ potatoes and many other Edwardian fruits and vegetables.

Visit Tatton Park's kitchen garden – pre-booking is advised
The Kitchen Garden in June at Trengwainton Garden, Cornwall

The kitchen garden, Trengwainton Garden, Cornwall 

Reputedly built to the dimensions of Noah’s Ark, this beautifully maintained 200-year-old walled garden has five sections, each with their own character.

Explore Trengwainton's walled garden
The Walled Garden in July at Wimpole Estate, Cambridgeshire

The kitchen garden, Wimpole Estate, Cambridgeshire 

With an impressive orchard full of apple, pear, plum and medlar crops, as well as around 50 types of tomatoes including the Green Zebra and Banana Cream, this organic walled kitchen has many more rare varieties and period features.

Discover Wimpole's organic walled kitchen
Looking for seasonal gardening tips?
Garden produce for sale in the Plant Centre

Seasonal food and growing 

Local and seasonal food is something that we're passionate about. You'll find our month-by-month calendar of what's in season, with tips on growing your own and recipes from our chefs, essential reading for a low-food mile lifestyle.

How your donations help

Many decades ago, a lot of kitchen gardens had fallen into disuse and disrepair. In recent years, we’ve been able to restore these gardens thanks to you, our members, supporters and visitors.

Your support and generosity has helped develop gardens that are not only thriving with fresh produce but are also enjoyable days out and educational tools for volunteers and local communities.

Restoring a walled garden

Restoring a walled kitchen garden can take many years.The walls might be crumbling and need repointing or rebuilding. Paths have often been ploughed up or even concreted. Underground there are complex drainage systems that collect rainwater from rooves or redirect streams into a central dipping pool.

The ancillary buildings connected with a walled garden are fascinating and all have a specific purpose. Glass house, mushroom house, root store, boiler room and bothy all need careful research and restoration.

Once all this is in hand, the crucial job of preparing the soil can begin. Sometimes it has been contaminated with waste or overrun with perennial weeds. With any luck a couple of years of growing green manures will bring it back to good health. Pigs have even been deployed as living ploughs at the walled garden at Attingham Park in Shropshire. 

Returning the fruit trees to the walls really marks the turning point in these complex and rewarding restoration projects. Once the apricots, peaches, pears and cherries are back, you really know that life is returning to a cherished part of our horticultural heritage

With your continued donations to look after the gardens in our care, we can ensure that gardens like these can go on providing seasonal and sustainable food as well as benefit those who visit now and in the future.

 

 

Restoration stories

kitchen gardener picking crops in the kitchen garden at KNightshayes

Knightshayes, Devon

Having fallen into decline after the First World War, the garden had become overgrown and too expensive to maintain. In 1999, a project was undertaken to restore the kitchen garden to its former glory and by 2003 it was fully productive again. Through the continuation of donations for its ongoing restoration, we’re looking to rebuild one of the original Victorian glass houses.

Walled garden at Blickling

Blickling, Norfolk

This derelict walled garden has been transformed, thanks largely to money raised through sales at the property’s second-hand bookshop. The garden has been little more than a grass field for 25 years, but with an incredible £134,000 raised through book sales in 2016 and 2017, it's now a haven teeming with fruit and vegetable crops.

Raised beds planted with vegetales and a pergola in the Kitchen Garden at Mottisfont

Mottisfont, Hampshire

The restoration of this evolving kitchen garden was made possible from the donations to the Walled Garden Appeal. Today, developments and improvements to this garden haven’t stopped thanks to small donations from daily harvests of vegetables, herbs and cut flowers that visitors can pick up. These funds have also helped to run our garden apprentice scheme.