Browsholme Hall dates from the 13th century and like many of England’s finest country houses is surrounded by landscaped parkland and gardens.
The hall has always been the home of the Parker family who have made many alterations and improvements over the centuries. (See this article for a history of the hall and the Parker family) In the 1800’s when Thomas Lister Parker inherited the hall he proceeded to make various improvements to the building, completely rebuilding the west wing, he was also very keen on the the Georgian fashion for landscape gardening.
Lister’s Landscape
Between 1797 and 1810 Thomas spent vast sums of money on re-laying the grounds after the fashion of Capability Brown who was the most famous and profligate of the Georgian landscape designers.
Thomas even had one of Capability Brown’s most famous inventions, the ‘ha-ha’ installed, this is a bank of earth with a wall one one side intended to preserve the views but still be stock-proof, at Browsholme you can see this in front of the halls front lawn. Thomas eventually spent so much he bankrupted himself.
The famous watercolour artist William Turner even visited Browsholme to marvel at the gardens and painted the hall in 1798.
Turner’s Terrace
The ‘romantic front terrace’ of the hall which Turner painted wasn’t always so, before Thomas Lister had it landscaped it was a walled garden, and there was an additional two acre ‘wilderness garden’ to the east of the hall.
This was planted in the 17th century fashion of walks or ‘perambulatories’ with fragrant rose bushes, shrubs, flowers, herbs and trees such as Laburnum, Guelder rose and Lilac planted alongside them, usually geometrically shaped and quite often with evergreen Yew hedges to provide year-round shelter.
Such gardens were intended as a place the lady of the house could ‘take the air’, presumably to get out of stuffy, smoky candlelit halls and get some fresh air.
The Wilderness Garden
The wilderness garden at Browsholme was planned in the shape of the union flag to commemorate the 1707 act of union, this was a very popular design at the time, the act being hugely important to the country. Until recently all that remained of the garden was the yew hedge, called the ‘yew walk’, but in 2019 the current occupiers of the hall, Robert and Amanda Parker, began an ambitious project to restore the two acre large wilderness garden.
The new wilderness garden will incorporate some modern twists, with old and new styles of planting combined, the four quadrants of the garden each representing the four countries of the U.K. and in the centre will be planted Lancashire roses.
The Browsholme Rose
Browsholme has its own rose, which grows up the side of the west wing on the front facade of the hall and also on the front of the ornate gatehouse. This is a surviving example of the earliest English Roses and is a stunning pink/yellow with a very delicate fragrance, the royal horticultural society sell the variety and cuttings can be bought from the tithe barn shop at the hall.
The gardens are opened to the public several days a year and are becoming a tourist destination in their own right, with seasonal garden workshops held by well known Lancashire horticulturist Marguerite Hughes being booked up as soon as they are announced!
As well as being only a short drive from the nearby town of Clitheroe the grounds are very accessible, children and dogs are welcome and if you have the time the 3-acre trout lake with its accompanying boathouse is a pleasant walk too, especially on a summer’s evening when Swallows and Dragonflies skim over the lake’s still waters.
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Northwest Nature and History 