Winter projects and spring flowers

As part of our monthly routine at York Gate Garden, we check all the structures and features around the whole site. The Arbour has been on our radar for a number of years, but it had finally become structurally unstable and needed taking down.

History of The Arbour

Robin Spencer was a surveyor by profession, following in his father Fred’s footsteps. It was not uncommon for Fred and Robin to come across wonderful bits and pieces of salvage for the garden. The modern-day terminology for it is upcycling, but recycling was in keeping with the Arts & Crafts style in which the Spencer family styled the garden.

In 1970, Robin happened across the original pieces of ‘attractively-shaped’ timber that he thought ‘might have a use’ when a building he looked after in the local town of Armley was damaged by fire. Once Robin had secured ownership of the timber, he drew a sketch of his vision for The Arbour.

You can read more about the original Arbour in Heritage of York Gate, a fabulous book about the history of the garden, written by long-standing volunteer, Val Crompton. The book is available to buy from the gift shop at the garden and also online.

New timber and construction

We sourced some newer oak beams (still probably at least 100 years old but had been part of a building so were in good nick) from a local reclamation yard along with three huge stone arches (to be used as benches in the meadow).

That was the easy part; finding someone to build the new Arbour wasn’t as straightforward. Because it was a one-off, originally designed and hand-sketched by Robin, there weren’t any plans on how to put Mark II together. The fact that the wood weighs roughly three tons and the garden's thin winding paths don’t allow for machinery to get anywhere near made life very difficult.

We acquired a number of very good quotes along with some “wouldn’t touch that with a barge pole” statements.

The answer was obvious in the end. The excellent and very talented landscape gardeners Cruse Landscapes, who replaced the legs on The Folly in The Dell last year, were the go-to men. When I showed Luke Cruse the job I fully expected him to run back to his van and drive off, but instead his response was “we love a challenge”. They definitely rose (pun intended) to the challenge.

They put the new Arbour together out the back of the garden so they could work out how it would all fit together before having each piece craned over the wall from the road (as Robin had originally done) so it would slot together like a giant wooden Lego set.

Possibly my favourite thing about the new Arbour is the inch-wide oak dowels Luke has sourced to pin the whole structure together. I am happy to say it all went smoothly and everyone is really pleased with the new Arbour. The only thing to do now is decide which climbers to train over it.

I am pleased to say that the newly restored arbour is a fantastic addition to the pinetum.

It has been wonderful to see a key part of the heritage of the garden restored for future generations.

When we open the gates to the garden for the public again on 2nd April it is an opportunity to see all the wonderful spring flowers throughout the garden. Spring is the time for the woodlanders to do their thing. They race out of the ground, in a hurry to grow and flower before the dense canopy of the trees above shade them out. Some of the best examples of this at York Gate Garden can be found in The Dell. Woodlanders from North America - Polygonatum, Uvularia and the wonderful trilliums - are among the showstoppers in The Dell. The fern border has some early treats in store too, by way of a range of primulas and Erythronium dens-canis (dog’s tooth violet). Not to forget the wonderful displays of tulips and daffodils throughout the garden, along with the stunning magnolia flowers about to burst.

We invite you to come and enjoy these as you pass through the much-loved garden rooms at York Gate Garden.