The story of the pioneering Gertude Bell and the restoration of a magnificent walled garden at her former North Yorkshire home

Hidden in trees about 100 yards off a country lane at East Rounton is a walled garden with the air of a secret garden, which it almost was until the start of its restoration in 2010.
Shaun Passman and Jenny Gaunt at the Dark Star Plants nursery in the walled garden at East Rounton. (Tony Johnson).Shaun Passman and Jenny Gaunt at the Dark Star Plants nursery in the walled garden at East Rounton. (Tony Johnson).
Shaun Passman and Jenny Gaunt at the Dark Star Plants nursery in the walled garden at East Rounton. (Tony Johnson).

Today it’s home to the Dark Star Plants nursery. You enter through a giant wooden door to face tables of plants as far as the eye can see along with vintage trowels and spades, metal watering cans, sieves and wooden wheelbarrows. Featuring vine eyes and iron brackets that used to support glass panels protecting fruits from birds, the walls provide a sense of peace and seclusion. You almost expect Mr McGregor to appear round the corner in pursuit of Peter Rabbit.

The original walled garden was built for fruit and vegetables in about 1870 as part of the Rounton Grange estate, not far from Northallerton. The house was built in the Arts and Crafts style by Sir Lowthian Bell, an ironmaster from Teesside, and was later home to his son Sir Hugh and daughter Gertrude.

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Born in 1868, Gertrude led an extraordinary life. She was the first woman to achieve a first class honours degree in Modern History from Oxford University, climbed Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, and became an expert on the politics, culture and geography of the Middle East, exploring the region extensively by horse and camel. Most simply but crudely summed up as a female Lawrence of Arabia, she advised the British government about what to do with Mesopotamia following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War which led to the creation of Iraq.

Gertrude Bell (second from left, second row) at the Cairo Conference in 1921 alongside Winston Churchill (centre, front row).Picture General Photographic Agency/Getty Images.Gertrude Bell (second from left, second row) at the Cairo Conference in 1921 alongside Winston Churchill (centre, front row).Picture General Photographic Agency/Getty Images.
Gertrude Bell (second from left, second row) at the Cairo Conference in 1921 alongside Winston Churchill (centre, front row).Picture General Photographic Agency/Getty Images.

In later life, she founded the archaeological museum in Baghdad where she died in 1926. Her achievements are depicted in a stained glass window in the Church of St Lawrence in East Rounton, which also features a small exhibition about her life.

The house was demolished in 1950 and no trace remains but other structures have survived. They include the walled garden, battery house (part of a hydro-electric power scheme), gardener’s house and lodge as well as glasshouses, all built by Sir Hugh shortly after he moved into the Grange in 1905.

There were two glasshouse ranges, with a palm house in the middle for growing conservatory plants. The eastern range with arched doorway still stands but is dilapidated with few panes and trees growing out of the top.

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During a gap in her travels, Gertrude built a rock garden and cascades at Rounton inspired by a similar venture undertaken by a friend, plant collector Reginald Farrer, of Clapham in the Yorkshire Dales. Sandstone was brought from Scarth Wood Moor, near Osmotherley, and the watercourse designed to take water from the lake close to the walled garden down a rill to the lily pond.

The nursery in the walled garden at East Rounton, where Rounton Grange once stood. (Tony Johnson).The nursery in the walled garden at East Rounton, where Rounton Grange once stood. (Tony Johnson).
The nursery in the walled garden at East Rounton, where Rounton Grange once stood. (Tony Johnson).

A keen gardener, Gertrude adored the grounds. In a letter in 1905, she wrote: “I can’t get over the pleasure of having this lovely place to walk about in. The garden is a mass of azaleas and rhododendrons. One feels it is wicked to leave it.” Today, the private grounds are covered in trees and brambles. She was also fond of and corresponded with the head gardener, referred to in her many letters as ‘Hanagan’.

A cedar of Lebanon that still stands grew from one of many seeds she sent home from her travels. In 1909, she wrote: “The new garden wall is a wonderful affair. You are making a fine job of it, aren’t you? We’ll plant fruit trees this autumn and we ought to have enough fruit to satisfy the most ambitious when it is done.”

The modern day Hanagan is Shaun Passman, of Dark Star Plants. He has researched the history of the garden. “When Gertrude was away she wanted to be back here but she loved the desert too much and felt she had a purpose over there rather than here,” he says.

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“When she was in Baghdad she wrote in her letters about how much she missed spring in Britain.”

Gertrude Bell who lived for a time at Rounton Grange. (Getty images).Gertrude Bell who lived for a time at Rounton Grange. (Getty images).
Gertrude Bell who lived for a time at Rounton Grange. (Getty images).

A professional gardener, Shaun has worked at private and public gardens, including the National Trust’s Ormesby Hall and Beningbrough Hall as well as Parcevall Hall in Wharfedale. He first became aware of the walled garden on a visit with wife Jenny to the Roots farm shop, part of the modern day Rounton estate.

“They told us that there was an old walled garden nearby. Being a gardener, this news piqued my interest. When we first saw the garden it was totally derelict and, most recently, had been used for keeping pheasants. There was a lot of chicken wire, nettles and corrugated iron. In the 1960s it was used for pigs and in the 1950s it was ploughed up and rented out as a market garden. We thought more and more about the idea of taking it on as a garden and base for Jenny’s nursery business.”

Jenny Gaunt travels around plant fairs and farmers’ markets and previously worked out of the couple’s home in Osmotherley. Named after her interest in dark plants and foliage, Dark Star Plants is in what’s called the slip garden, within a 12ft wall added to the north and east of the original walled garden by Sir Hugh Bell in 1909.

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“The garden is still part of the Bell estate,” says Shaun. “We approached them and they agreed to lease it to us in June 2010. With the help of volunteers and family, we then started demolition and clearance and opened a section of it at Easter 2011.

“As I’d worked in historic gardens, I decided to restore the walled garden. It covers an acre which is simply too big for a nursery so we decided to grow fruit and veg in it but the veg wasn’t really viable and too much work. We kept the fruit though, mainly apples and pears but also gages, rhubarb, raspberries, gooseberries, cherries and figs. We chose some varieties according to names we found on old metal plant labels.”

The 1911 census shows that 14 gardeners were employed at Rounton. “Today there’s so much space for just the two of us and our three hard-working volunteers to cultivate so we’ve had to find other ways of managing it. After the veg faded away, cut flowers came more to the fore as there’s been a lot more interest in them lately. Now two of the quarters are meadow grass with mown borders, one of them is a cut flower meadow with mown circle and paths, and the fourth quarter consists of perennial and annual cut flowers.”

With the help of old maps, they discovered there used to be a well in the middle, equidistant to all the beds and borders, as was traditional in walled gardens, which they uncovered during the restoration.

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“We think the stone had been thrown in to stop pigs from falling in and then the well was capped off. We took the stone out but we weren’t too sure how deep it would be. I just hoped I could run up the ladder faster than it went down! But it was closer to four rather than 40 feet deep. More of a sump, in fact. We’re hoping to get a stonemason to repair the blocks. They’re in quite good condition, considering.”

They plan to consolidate what they have. “We’d also like to further enhance the visitor experience,” says Shaun. “The garden is all about priorities. You have a mental list of jobs to be done but some things never get off the bottom of it.”