Harrington Hall Gardens

Harrington Hall, with it's six acres of gardens, is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in central Lincolnshire, at the southern edge of the Wolds. It is only two miles from Somersby, the birthplace of Alfred Tennyson.His famous poem, Maud, is said to have been inspired by the gardens at Harrington,as well as by the heiress Rosa Baring whom he loved hopelessly while she lived at the hall

The Terrace, with views over the Square Lawn and the Lincoln Red cattle and the remains of the medieval village in the park,is Tennyson's 'high Hall Garden'.

The house and garden were already old in Tennyson's day. Originally early Tudor - and many of the walls date from this period - the house was extensively rebuilt in the seventeenth century

A disastrous fire destroyed most of the interior in 1991. For years the garden was smothered in scaffolding as builders laboured at the restoration, but once it was repaired, the owners and the Head Gardener were able to carry out long term plans for the historic gardens.

The first to benefit was the walled Kitchen Garden, just behind the hall. Large plots were broken up into smaller sections, each edged with dwarf box. It is now an attractive and fully functioning kitchen garden, with fan-trained fruit trees round the ancient walls.

A large selection of vegetables grow to organic standards here, many from the Heritage Seed Library at the Henry Doubleday Research Association, including blue potatoes, purple podded peas and black beans. Pillar roses and a dahlia bed add colour as well as supplying the house and the church next door with flowers.