Exploring the garden at Tatton Park

The Japanese Garden at Tatton Park, Cheshire | © Tatton Park

Wander through the garden at Tatton Park and you'll discover a number of distinct areas within its 50 acres, including the Japanese Garden, Fernery, Kitchen Garden and Tower Garden. Since 1725, each successive owner of the Egerton family estate has played a part in the evolution of the garden and sought the expertise of the leading landscape architects of the time.

The Japanese Garden

The Japanese Garden was almost certainly the result of Alan de Tatton’s visit to the Anglo-Japanese exhibition at White City in London in 1910. He got together a team of Japanese workmen to create what is now said to be ‘the finest example of a Japanese garden in Europe'.

The Fernery

The 19th-century Fernery has an extensive collection of ferns and tree ferns from New Zealand and Australia. It was designed in the late 1850s by Joseph Paxton, who was famous for building the Crystal Palace.

For more information visit the Tatton Park website.

Tatton Park, Cheshire, restoration of gardens. Kitchen garden restored. Vegetable beds with cloches with a wooden clamp over some plants. — The Kitchen Garden at Tatton Park | © ©National Trust Images/Stephen Robson

The Kitchen Garden

The walled Kitchen Garden reflects an almost forgotten era and demonstrates the importance of traditional skills and procedures. From mushroom sheds and onion stores to barns and glasshouses, all have been restored to their former use.

Tatton’s Head Gardener Simon Tetlow makes sure that all the plants in the walled Kitchen Garden are grown free of chemicals. Additionally, only plants that would have been grown up until 1900 feature here, making the garden a piece of living history.

Here you'll find historical scarlet emperor runner beans, local British queen potatoes and quirky fat lay blonde lettuces. Other typically Edwardian types of fruit and vegetables grow here, and you can buy or eat them on the estate when they're in season.

Spring surprises at Tatton Park

Beautiful cherry and apple blossom swaying in the breeze
The handkerchief trees (Davidia Involucrata) flowering in May
The newly refurbished Italian Garden offering views to the Peak District
Azaleas and rhododendrons flowering from late April
See the Gunnera (Giant Rhubarb) coming back to life after the winter
Listen to the bees buzzing around the climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea Petiolaris) in the Tower Garden