PCA undertook extensive excavations and building recording over two seasons in the walled garden at Alnwick, which lies some 300m east of Alnwick Castle, within the castle grounds. Our work revealed details of the garden’s development from its initial origin as a kitchen garden in the mid-eighteenth century through various expansions, up until the eve of its transformation into its current incarnation as The Alnwick Garden. Indeed, the later stages of fieldwork were undertaken during construction work for the new garden, which is now a major tourist attraction.
The fieldwork, in conjunction with archival research, established that the gardens underwent a series of modifications through time, which reflected both prevailing trends in garden and glasshouse technology and the interests of the various dukes and duchesses of Northumberland. The establishment of a chronological sequence of garden development can be hard to pin down; gardens, by their very nature, are subject to frequent change and modification and would vary seasonally as well as over the years. Nevertheless, was possible to identify some major changes in garden design, buildings and layout, as well as modifications to the technologies employed to maintain the various hothouses which occupied the garden.
The construction of the first Alnwick garden was overseen by the first Duke of Northumberland. Initially constructed in the 1760s or early 1770s, it covered approximately 1.5 hectares and was a kitchen garden, primarily intended to supply the castle household with fruit. But this garden also fulfilled another function, as a nursery for the cultivation of young trees which were used in planting up the surrounding landscape, to designs influenced by Capability Brown. Three sides of the original walls of the earliest hothouse were identified, incorporated into the basement of a much later conservatory, illustrating how garden buildings were frequently modified and adapted to reflect changing fashions and requirements.
During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the second duke made significant changes to the surrounding parkland, but also invested considerably in improvements within the walled garden. Forcing frames, hothouses and conservatories were built to assist in the cultivation of exotic fruit. Remains of a heated forcing frame were identified, as was one of the hothouses constructed during this period, incorporated into a later structure.
The most radical, and enduring, changes to the buildings within the garden were made c. 1830. New construction, combined with modifications to existing buildings, created houses for the cultivation of peaches, grapes and pineapples, extensive remains of which survived until the time of the fieldwork. A central conservatory, with a domed cupola reflecting that which still survives at Syon today, no doubt involved extensive investment, but was a short-lived building, swept away in the 1860s during the most radical changes to the garden seen so far.
Led by the fourth duke and inspired by prevailing trends and the popularity of the ‘Grand Tour’, the new garden was extended to the south, and its size more than doubled. The new garden was Italianate in design, with strong architectural lines, a large ornamental pond and fountain, parterre borders, and sweeping vistas. Whilst the pinery, peach house and vinery of the third duke’s garden remained, the redesign of the garden involved landscaping on such a vast scale that the backhouses of the original hothouse, constructed against the garden’s north wall, were reduced to cellars, serving a newly-constructed grand conservatory above. Even though the fortunes of the castle and hence the garden declined during the twentieth century, many of the changes instigated by the fourth duke remained visible when our fieldwork began.
PCA Monograph 21 ‘Parterres Bright with Flowers’, lavishly illustrated with reconstruction drawings and vintage botanical paintings, the volume combines the results of excavation within the gardens and building recording work on the standing structures with an examination of hothouse technology and archival research, charting the first 200 years of the evolution of this remarkable walled garden.
