Gardens in the Norfolk Area by Annie Bullen

The flat and lonely landscape of Norfolk, with its big skies, misty marshes and the watery vastness of The Wash is full of history and legend. This is the land once pillaged and fought over by Danes, the land where the devil-dog Black Shuck is said to pad silently behind his hapless victims and where bells of churches lost to the sea ring mournfully underwater. But great houses and halls were built with gardens designed to give pleasure for many generations.

Holkham and Houghton

In the north of the county are two of Norfolk’s greatest historic houses, Holkham Hall and Houghton Hall. Holkham, set in landscaped grounds, its own beach nearby, was built in the early 18th century and was home to the famous ‘Coke of Norfolk’, Thomas Coke, landowner, agricultural reformer and campaigning MP. Houghton, between King’s Lynn and Fakenham, was where ‘Cock Robin’, Sir Robert Walpole, England’s premier statesman spent more than £200,000 creating a classical Palladian mansion.
The glory of Holkham is its 3,000-acre park laid out in the classical fashion by William Kent (although altered by Thomas Coke), with a herd of 800 fallow deer and wonderful holm oaks. A great George and the Dragon fountain (whose flow is restricted these days) stands between the long formal flowerbeds.
Houghton has at its heart a five-acre walled garden, restored over the last 18 years to create 20 lovely areas, including a box-edged rose parterre, whose design echoes that of the ceiling of the White Drawing Room in the house. There’s a pool garden, a kitchen garden with a huge fruit cage, a plum orchard surrounded by pleached limes, a cherry walk, underplanted with iris, and spectacular rebuilt glasshouses. The whole garden is held together by sweeping double herbaceous borders, which are beautifully maintained.
Contacts: Holkham Hall, Wells-next-the-sea; 01328 710227
Houghton Hall, between King’s Lynn and Fakenham; 01263 837444

Wootens

Woottens of Wenhaston is neither an open garden, nor is it in Norfolk. But, not too far away, near Southwold in Suffolk, it’s a nursery, with a display garden, that is worth a detour or even a pilgrimage.
Hemerocallis (day lilies) and iris are specialities, as are pelargoniums, grasses and auriculas. They have bewildering quantities of all these. But you’ll also find the more uncommon varieties and hybrids of many herbaceous perennials, some fabulous shade-lovers and dahlias and a catalogue/handbook, which is a joy to read. I visited Woottens with a group of gardening friends and we agreed that our visit – much longer than anticipated – was well worth missing lunch for.
Contact: Woottens of Wenhaston, Blackheath, Wenhaston, Suffolk; 01502 478258

East Ruston

A day’s visit is not enough to explore everything there is to see at East Ruston Old Vicarage, an astonishing labour of love and good design by owners Graham Robeson and Alan Gray.
This exposed site, under two miles from the windy coast, was a blank canvas for, first, shelter belts of pine, alder and eucalyptus and then extraordinary creativity let loose in a series of gardens: from the cosy terrace to the very grand King’s Walk, with its box parterre and tightly clipped yew obelisks; from the exotic Tree Fern Garden to the terraced Mediterranean Garden.
There are fantastic fountains and long views towards the coast, a beautiful wildflower meadow and corresponding wildlife pond, an exotic garden full of bananas, giant lobelia and tender salvias, and a traditional English long border.

But most exciting of all, to my mind, is the Desert Wash, gravel upon gravel upon gravel to mimic parts of Arizona where it rarely rains. Here you’ll find agaves, aloes, puya, berkhaya, cacti and beschoneria … in Norfolk.
Contact: East Ruston Old Vicarage, East Ruston, Norwich; 01692 650432