Things to do in the garden at Acorn Bank

Visitors in the distance looking into the pond at Acorn Bank. Yellow and red verbascum and poppies are in the border in the foreground. — Visitors looking into the pond in the garden at Acorn Bank, Cumbria | © National Trust Images/Paul Harris

Discover what lies within the garden’s 17th-century walls - stroll through traditional fruit orchards, see what's growing in the vegetable patches and take in the aromas of the Herb Garden, the largest in the National Trust's care and home to over 275 varieties of herbs.

Summer in the garden

The gardens at Acorn Bank are at their best during the summer months - think roses in bloom, unfolding their scent and colour, and vibrant herbaceous borders.

June and July are the best months to see (and smell) the highly fragrant shrub roses outside the Dovecote. You can find climbing and rambling rose varieties in the walled garden.

The herbaceous border in the Sunken Garden is at its peak in late June and July - standout flowers include colourful campanulas, red valerian, foxgloves and pink opium poppies.

In late June, the Herb Garden is smelling fragrant. With over 250 herbs, it’s the largest collection in the National Trust’s care. Historically, these plants all have a purpose, whether it’s for culinary, medicinal or industrial uses, or for dyeing fabric, removing toxins from soil or even banishing bedbugs from the house.

The Lily Border is packed with pink martagon lilies, yellow Pyrenean lilies and orange leopard lilies in late June. These are all variants of the Turk's cap lily, which have pretty pendulum-shaped flowers.
The Sunken Garden is an oasis of calm revolving around the ornamental lily pond, which is home to all three species of UK newt. The smooth, palmate and great crested newt all live here and you can spot them sunbathing from May onwards. They use the nooks and crannies in the dry-stone walls around the terraces as hiding places.

The Herb Garden contains a Silent Space for a moment of quiet and contemplation – sit and take a moment to yourself within its 400-year-old walls.
The orchard will be bursting with fruit in August, owing to Acorn Bank's 175 varieties of apple.

The vegetable beds are full of ideas and suggestions for having a go at growing them at home, even if you only have a very small patch. There's interpretation in every bed to explain and inspire.

Make the most of your vertical space at home by taking away some inspiration from the various climbers you'll see here. Discover sweetpeas, jasmine, Virginia creeper, climbing hydrangea, wisteria and chocolate vine, amongst others.

The terraced borders in the garden at Acorn Bank. An iron gate is in the corner of the wall. There are tall pink opium poppies as the main feature of this corner. — The terraced borders in the garden at Acorn Bank, Cumbria | © National Trust Images/Stephen Robson

Colourful borders

Wander past bursts of colour in the herbaceous borders

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The 17th-century walls shelter the National Trust's largest collection of medicinal and culinary plants in the herb garden, and the traditional orchards are surrounded by herbaceous borders. Beyond the walls, the new orchard contains a growing collection of local apples.

A series of small, linked gardens celebrates continuous development and adaptation over at least 350 years. The first brick-lined walls date from around 1650, originally enclosing a productive vegetable garden with a smaller area for fruit. This was protected by a wall heated with the flue gases from three fires.

By the 1830s the emphasis had moved towards fruit production and more decorative elements. There was also a lower garden on the banks of the Crowdundle Beck which was used to grow vegetables, but this is now woodland.
Dorothy Una Ratcliffe carried on this work in the 1930s and 1940s with a walled garden full of fruit and flowers. She added new and salvaged ornamental ironwork and statuary by creating a wildflower and bird reserve on the bank behind the house and a pond between the house and watermill.

Daffodils and apple trees were protected from the wartime Dig For Victory plough by making a new vegetable-growing area adjacent to the walled garden.
The team at Acorn Bank has directly managed the garden since 1969. The first herb garden was laid out by Graham Stuart Thomas in the smaller of the walled gardens. This herb garden was redesigned and comprehensively replanted in 2003. It now holds over 275 different varieties and is the largest medicinal Herb Garden in the National Trust's care.

There's a 'Silent Space' in the Herb Garden - part of an initiative which was set up to invite more peace and quietness into people's lives. All you need to do is put away your phone, close your eyes, take a deep breath and soak up the sounds and smells, as the special collection of plants quietly grow around you.

This Silent Space is available for peace-seekers seven days a week, from 10.30am-5pm.
The garden is increasingly known for its orchards. A collection of 175 local apple varieties has been established in Dorothy Una Ratcliffe’s vegetable garden, and a succession of manure hotbeds have also been built in this area to provide early salad crops for the tea-room.

At the top of the orchards there is a teaching apiary with four buzzing beehives, which was established by Penrith Beekeepers.

A view up the path within the parkland at Acorn Bank, Penrith

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Family-friendly things to do at Acorn Bank

Discover what family-friendly activities are on offer at Acorn Bank in Cumbria, from geocaching around the parkland to newt spotting in the Sunken Garden. Try a self-guided nature trail and use rubbing plaques to discover the flora and fauna of Acorn Bank's walled garden and woodland.