Things to do in the garden at Acorn Bank

Orchards in the foreground with a house in the distance — Apple orchards at Acorn Bank, Cumbria | © National Trust Images/Annapurna Mellor

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.

Autumn in the garden

The trees are laden with fruit during autumn, including apples, pears, damson, quince, mulberries and plums. There’ll be the opportunity to sample some of the 175 varieties of apple which grow in the orchards, with tasting weekends in September and October - we’ll have apples for sale as well as baby apple trees to plant in your own garden.

The gigantic pear tree - a Blakeney Red - was donated to the National Trust by the company who make Babycham, direct from one of their orchards. This tree produces a huge number of pears every autumn, which are collected by a few local cider makers who use them to make ‘Perry’.
The magnificent Virginia Creeper adorning the front of the house turns fiery red in early September, and then quickly drops its leaves.

The paeony bed retains late summer colour in early September, including dahlias, penstemons and echinacea. Grasses and asters also keep the flower borders bright at this time. A copper beech growing on the ha-ha, known locally as the Twisted Sister, turns beautiful shades of burnt orange.

The Herb Garden

See the National Trust's largest collection of herbs, sheltered within the 400-year-old garden walls

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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.