Gardeners’ world tour

Most people have read, seen the film of, or at least heard of Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, Around the World in Eighty Days, and its hero, Phileas Fogg, but few will recognise the name of Edward Cooke.

And the same goes for James and Maria Bateman, and yet they deserve to sit alongside the likes of Capability Brown and Humphry Repton in the list of the all-time greats of horticultural design.

But the Batemans and Cooke would probably have been forgotten were it not for the stunning creation at Biddulph Grange, a National Trust property, near Stoke. But when the Batemans owned in the days of the Victorians, it was a testing ground for their passion – gardening.

And with the help of their friend, Edward Cooke, they transformed an ordinary piece of Staffordshire countryside. It became a world in miniature, with gardens separated by hedges, rocks and plantations.

Here was a small piece of China, complete with ornate wooden bridge, temple, pool and plants straight from a willow-pattern plate. There was a snippet of Egypt – sphinxes guarding a pyramid of yew. Another area became a rock garden filled with plants from the Himalayas.

An Italian garden gave way to an avenue of limes; there were rhododendrons and azaleas, a dahlia walk, a pinetum, an arboretum, and even a stumpery where tree roots were excavated and then set upside down to form an enchanted forest.

More intimate are the mosaic parterre; more modern is the woodland trail. Would the Batemans have approved of the latter? Who knows, but it’s an NT move to encourage more families to Biddulph Grange, and it looks as though it will be a success.

Bateman’s original design was on a grand scale, but each idea was parcelled and presented as an intimate glimpse. It was theatrical, it was eccentric, it was expensive, and it was wonderfully way over the top. But it worked.

Since the NT gained control of the gardens, it has been hard at work resurrecting them, intent on returning them to the glory days when, even by Victorian standards, they were a masterpiece of creativity.

There is still plenty of work to be done, but anyone wanting ideas for their own aspiring plot – be it large or small – could do far worse than visit Biddulph.

* Biddulph Grange, Biddulph, Stoke-on-Trent. www.nationaltrust.org.uk