RHS Bridgewater is the newest RHS garden, located in Salford in Greater Manchester, which opened this May. Which for us was rather fortuitous, as we were close by with our rearranged trip to the Lake District. Once I’d clocked this good fortune - thanks Monty and Gardener’s World - I was straight onto the RHS website booking my timed entry, calculating the distance from our holiday cottage and the time it might take us to arrive after checkout. As it turned out, that calculation was right and we arrived bang in the middle of our slot, more by luck than judgement though I’m sure.
When we left the holiday cottage our swimwear was still wet from the previous night’s dip in the hot tub. It was in a bag on its own so it wasn’t a disaster but the idea of leaving it to fester wasn’t appealing - anyone remember school swimming bags which were a special type of ultra thick fluorescent plastic? Yes, exactly. Well when we arrived and parked up, the sun was out and so I spotted my chance to dry our swimwear. MOH almost disowned me, but not quite - the memories of wet swimwear were strong. And so I set about ‘hanging’ out my washing, or rather draping it over our luggage on the folded down back seats. It wasn’t exactly having them blowing from the aerial, but you know, I’ll admit it’s not normal behaviour. It worked though, a couple of hours later when we were back at the car my ‘washing’ was dry, and I was rather pleased with myself!
But anyway, RHS Bridgewater. It’s a new garden on a historic site - so there’s established trees and a period building and a walled garden, and it’s got a lot of growing in to do, but that didn’t make for any less of an experience. In fact, the opposite, it’ll be great to see how the garden develops over the years and it’d be great to go back at some point and see how it’s grown.
Today I’m sharing the photos of the Chinese Streamside garden, and because it was those photos that ‘spoke’ to me as I looked through the photos I’d taken.
The winding path and the reflective stream instantly give that feeling of calm, don’t they?
The garden here at Bridgewater is a ‘novel fusing of the best of British and Chinese gardening traditions’ which has been made possible by a collaboration between the local Chinese community, horticultural experts in China and the RHS. There’s more to come from this garden which is themed around the four seasons.
The stream forms the ‘spine’ of the garden flowing through woodland and meadowland to Moon Bridge Water.
It’s just one of the magical spaces that will, I’m sure, grow into its space - and those lucky enough to be able to visit more regularly than I will will be able to see grow and establish itself. That in itself is quite magical.
If you want to find out more about the RHS Bridgewater garden I’ve included the RHS video below - it’s only short, and definitely worth a view.
