The Bromwich Castle Hall Gardens

by Richard Denning

Right underneath the flight path of planes taking off from the nearby Birmingham International Airport, mere yards from a modern housing estate and a few miles from the centre of the modern city of Birmingham is a tranquil reminder of a time when the surrounding area was just country side. Today we visited Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens.

The rear of Castle Bromwich Hall.

The house was built in 1599 by Sir Edward Devereux and extended by Sir John Bridgeman I about 100 years later. The Gardens were then developed by several generations of the Bridgeman Family  reaching a peak of excellence around 1760. The Gardens fell into decline during the twentieth century until they were rescued by the Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens Trust in 1985.



These 10 acre walled gardens are a rare example of formal English garden design of the style popular before  Capability  Brown brought in landscape gardens and formal gardens went out of fashion . They are being restored as near as possible to the period 1680 to 1762 when the Bridgeman family moved to Weston Park.

The Kitchen Gardens

The Green House and Summer House have been restored:

The Parterre style of Garden (  French term I believe)
was reconstructed from engravings from the 17th century:

There are lots of these little well laid out gardens

All in all well worth the visit if you like Gardens and historical ones at that. There is a small tea room there. Adults are £4 entry.

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Richard Denning is a historical fiction author whose main period of interest is the Early Anglo-Saxon Era. His Northern Crown series explores the late 6th and early 7th centuries through the eyes of a young Saxon lord.

Explore the darkest years of the dark ages with Cerdic.

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