National Trust :: Crook Hall Gardens

Hi there everyone 😀

Because of the heatwave, we’d skipped our usual National Trust stop on our journey to Durham, not wanting to leave a car full of fresh food baking in the heat. That meant we were keen to make the most of the couple of hours we had before needing to get ready to meet up with the rest of our party.

Having dropped everything off at The Mayoress and transferred all the fresh stuff from cool boxes to the fridge we pretty much headed straight out for Crook Hall Gardens.

It was literally a few minutes drive from where we were staying … right on the edge of the city. Our short drive there gave us our first views of the cathedral and the river …

It really was a lovely place to visit, with a series of interlinking gardens, set against the backdrop of a Grade 1 listed medieval hall. There is a maze, walled gardens, a wildlife pond, lots of cool shady seating areas and views of the cathedral.

It was our first visit and we couldn’t wait to explore. As ever … I took lots of photographs so sit back and enjoy a wander round the garden with us.

From the moment we entered the garden we were enthralled … by rose covered arches …

… swathes of wildflowers …

… and stunning summer perennial borders …

Our first real stop was the walled gardens … which were looking absolutely fabulous … 

The walled gardens are a joy to wander through … with almost hidden paths and gateways leading deeper into the gardens … revealing more and more surprises and colour around every turn …

The views looking back up the gardens to the hall were sooooo pretty …

Once out of the walled gardens we couldn’t resist a selfie with the toad …

… before heading through the vegetable garden …

… and into the wellbeing garden … where we just couldn’t resist sitting for a while …

We moved onto the wildlife pond … where we found a lovely shady spot with a perfectly placed bench to sit and enjoy the view and a welcome cool breeze for a few minutes …

We then made our way through a row of interlinking gardens starting with the silver and white garden …

… moving on through the orchard and the Shakespeare garden …

We ended up in the Cathedral garden … where the shape and vibrancy of the beds are designed to echo the stained glass windows of the cathedral itself …

There were some lovely views of the cathedral from here too …

By now time was getting on and we really needed to get back to get ready to meet up with everyone for the evening.

Crook Hall was a really lovely garden and somewhere we would definitely want to visit again when we have a bit more time. It would definitely be easy to while away the best of a day there 😀

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