National Gardens Scheme Gardens Open Day will be on 9th May 2010 - 2-5pm

National Gardens Scheme

One of the subtleties of designing a garden is to manipulate changes of level to reinforce the spatial character of the site and of the layout which evolves from it. The gardens at Abbey Gate College, Saighton Grange, situated some four miles south of Chester, are a little masterpiece of garden design and demonstrate this technique of creating interest from the way the levels are handled. The entrance itself is through an impressive gap in the lovely red sandstone cliff which marks the entrance to the Eaton Estate village of Saighton, as it does also to the sister village of Eccleston on the west side of the River Dee. These attractive villages were both quarried for building stone from the visible rock outcrops, and Saighton Grange itself is built in this warm red coloured stone.The entrance is marked by two grey willow-leaved pears (Pyrus salici­folia) sited (incongruously for the setting and markedly out of scale) on mown grass lawns on either side of the gate. The short drive winds gently upwards to a gravel forecourt in front of the medieval gatehouse entrance to the building. This building (apart from its entrance) is mainly Victorian in style and is beautifully situated on a south-facing slope.

The South Gardens

From the front doors of the building one's attention is immediately drawn to a symmetrical vista seen through the yew hedge which has undergone restoration, that surrounds the forecourt. This view encourages a straight descent down stone steps and a narrow path of diagonally laid red sandstone paving slabs. The path leads through the centre of two attractive redesigned gardens, which have been restored to the design of Inigo Triggs’ in 1901. These gardens are beautifully laid out in both flower beds and borders. The upper is known as The Pink Garden (from the collection of pink flowers) and the lower as The Blue Garden( from the collection of blue flowering plants).Both these gardens have undergone a great deal of restoration over the last few years. At the end of the path there is a long well-planted herbaceous border backed by a low sandstone wall and fronted by a narrow path. The herbaceous border is a twentieth century addition (it is not shown on a plan of 1901) and at its centre has a semi-circular hedge to mark the south end of the walk from the Gateway known appropriately as "The Bulge".