Rose Garden
The Rose Garden at Brodsworth Hall is perhaps the most beautiful area of The Grove. This area of the garden existed in Thellusson's era but not in its present form and when English Heritage took over it was substantially added to. Today you'll see a 45 metre long pergola draped with scented roses, honeysuckle and vines which forms the central axis of the garden with box-edged beds on either side
It's designed symmetrically as if it was a leaf, the paths representing the veins. The beds have been densely planted with over 100 different types of old roses in cultivation before 1900, famed for their scent and beauty, such as 'Fantin-Latour', 'Queen of Bourbons' and 'Madame Knorr'.
Throughout the summer it is rich in the complex scents of the roses and in autumn the stems hang with bright red hips.
Along one flank of the Rose Garden is a long, crescent-shaped herbaceous border divided into nine sections by yew and planted with perennials. This was laid out in about 1920 after some dog kennels were relocated leaving an open space and views over the farm, which the family wanted to disguise.
When it was restored in 2006 it was decided to only use plants available in Britain prior to Queen Victoria's death in 1901. From late spring to late autumn you can see peonies, lupins, Agapanthus, Achillea, geraniums and Rudbeckia flowering in sequence with the entire border being maintained by the garden volunteers.
THE ROSE DELL
Next to it, and a recent addition, is the Rose Dell created after about three-quarters of an acre of self-sown trees and dense ivy were cleared in the winter of 2004.
New trees were planted such as copper beech, hornbeam and oaks and underplanted with a wide variety of species rose including Rosa moysii, R. gallica and R. primula all of which thrive in the thin soil.
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