Front Garden

The Front Garden is at the South and East of Rudchester Manor. It is surrounded by a stone wall from the house to the garage, along the road to the orchard, across to the Treehouse Field and back to the house.

Its current layout appears very similar to that shown in the First Edition OS map in 1860 with lawns to the South and East, and a division along the line of the Yew Hedge, which is said to have been planted to commemorate the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

A path is shown around the perimeter, as now, and a path or drive from the road to the front door which widens as it nears the house. There are still ornamental gates on to the road, but they haven’t been used for many years.

These are the oldest photographs we have of Rudchester. The first shows a wide gravel area leading from the road to the house, a neatly trimmed yew hedge, but rather the other trees are rather over-grown. The second shows a much neater garden and a new flowerbed on the South half of the gravel drive. The third is photograph from the gates taken in 1964 and shows the flowerbeds with white roses and more extensive Virginia Creeper across the front of Rudchester Manor.

In 2001, there was a flowerbed in the North East corner of the front garden, but it was laid to grass that Summer.

The area behind the yew hedge was so shaded that not even grass would grow, so in August 2003 we landscaped it into shrub beds bounded by the espaliered apple trees with gravelled and paved areas.

A section of the stone wall at the North of the front garden, between Rudchester Manor and the Garages, fell down on 28 May 2008 - fortunatly no one was hurt. It was rebuilt that Summer, and the adjacent trees were removed to prevent further undermining.