Holkham Hall's restored walled garden sees 57,000 visitors

An historic walled garden which reopened after a Covid-delayed restoration project had some 57,000 visitors in 2022, its owners said.

Holkham Hall in Norfolk had been slowly working to restore the six-acre garden after it fell into disrepair, and then the Covid pandemic halted work.

Much of it reopened last year after being awarded some £726,000 in grants since 2020 to help recovery.

A spokesman said it was in "a much better place" than two years ago.

Holkham Hall, between Hunstanton and Wells-next-the-Sea, is a privately-owned Palladian-style mansion, built by Thomas Coke, the first Earl of Leicester, between 1734 and 1764.

It has been inhabited by the Coke family ever since, who run the estate as a farm and tourist attraction.

Its surrounding park and garden is Grade I listed with the walled garden thought to have been originally laid out by Samuel Wyatt during the late 1700s.

The estate, which includes the vast, sandy expanse of Holkham beach, has long-standing connections to the Royal family, whose Sandringham Estate is nearby.

For about 200 years, vegetables for the house and estate plus rare plants were successfully gown there, but by the early 2000s there had been a demise.

Head gardener Mark Morrell said various attempts had been made from about 2007 to take it back in hand and open it back up as a tourist attraction but "without much money to do it, it was done quickly and cheaply".

It opened in 2008 but there were "lots of mistakes and bland planting" and the estate had been "revisiting what was done in haste and improving it", he said.

The estate was hit like other places when it closed in March 2020 and there was a "big loss", Mr Morrell added, but by the end of the year, visitor numbers went "through the roof" as people wanted to get out and about.

The estate then received grants from the Cultural Recovery Fund, Historic Houses Foundation and Historic England, which allowed it "to finish work quicker than we might have done".

Restoration of the Thomas Messenger Glasshouse had started prior to Covid, but a grant enabled it to get finished and it opened in 2021.

Other grants enabled the Samuel Wyatt Vinery - a Grade II listed Victorian glasshouse - and sunken pit houses to open in 2022.

"The projects were on our wish list for the next 10 years but Covid brought it all forward and two years on we are in a much better place," Mr Morrell said.

The estate has spent a total of about £1m on the restoration project and the work continues.

Mr Morrell added it meant the public could now see a unique walled garden.

"A lot of houses have Victorian and Edwardian greenhouses but it's fairly unusual to have a Georgian greenhouse," he said.

"We have a real collection of super historic buildings which also go through to Victorian and Edwardian times, so in a small area there is nearly 200 years of greenhouse history and it was all the best available at the time.

"Nothing is ever finished in gardening and we constantly want to change and improve, but it's open to the public."

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