Burton Constable Hall, Hull: Yorkshire herbarium to share remarkable secrets with the public for first time in 200 years

Now the herbarium, at Burton Constable Hall, near Hull, is to share its remarkable secrets with the public in the hall’s new exhibition The Curiosity Garden.

The herbarium is one of the largest and most complete surviving collections of its kind in Britain outside London.

It is brought together in this way for the first time in over two centuries.

Sarah Burton, curator at Burton Constable Hall, said: “Very few people have seen the herbarium like this.

"Although the specimens are over two centuries old, they’ve been preserved with great care.

"You can still see the detail in the plants as well as the handwritten notes recorded alongside them, showing how carefully each plant was observed and documented."

Burton Constable Hall is a Grade I-listed building.

It is set in magnificent parkland most famously designed by the world-renowned gardener and landscape architect Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.

Having been home to the Constable family for some 700 years, it is owned and run by charity the Burton Constable Foundation.

And it was William Constable, who inherited the estate in 1747, that was to play a key role in the development of its collection.

Constable’s sampling of dried plants, known as his “dry garden”, brings together both local and exotic specimens.

His passion for plants was to help shape both its siting and that of the wider estate, with The Curiosity Garden now offering a rare chance to share a sneak peak.

The specimens here have been largely unseen for generations, said Ms Burton, and reflect society's growing interest in botany from that time.

Specimens would once have been gathered, exchanged and studied by collectors, gardeners and correspondents from across Britain and beyond.

The collection here now shows how plants were once recorded and documented, said Ms Burton, and the range of species which were noted at the time.

And as part of the project, the entire herbarium has also been digitised, making this archive available to wider audiences.

Finally, it comes shortly after funding of £242,000 was agreed from Arts Council England (ACE) to support the urgent conservation of the hall’s historic cupolas.

These are a defining feature of the estate's distinctive architectural features, the foundation has outlined, and the funding will help safeguard them for the future as well as for generations to come.

The Curiosity Garden exhibition also forms part of the Yorkshire Country House Partnership’s shared theme for this year, with plants, trees and the country house.

Across the region historic houses such as this are all presenting exhibitions and displays exploring the botanical heritage of settings from gardens to parkland landscapes.

The exhibition runs until November 1.