Gardens for all seasons - Sheffield Park

There's little doubt that winter's on the way when English gardens close their gates and the mists start rolling in off the sea and leave us swathed in gray until mid morning. So in the next few weeks I'm going to feature gardens that remain open throughout the year, starting with Sheffield Park in East Sussex. This magnificent garden always comes to light at this time of year because of its stunning autumn colours, but in reality, it's a wondrous garden throughout the year and is only closed from 24-27 December this year.

It's the huges expanses of water and the planting around the lakes here Sheffield Park that makes this landscape so remarkable because you get marvellous reflections, particularly from the maples and scarlet oaks at this time of year. Capability Brown and Humphrey Repton both worked here after the property was acquired by the Holroyd family in 1769, although there are no records documenting what they actually did. 

The planting today is largely due to Arthur Soames, who purchased the estate in 1909 and embarked on a major planting programme and built up a magnificent collection of exotic trees, conifers and shrubs suited to the acidic soils found here. He also extended the top lakes and called in Messrs Pulham, who created the Rock Garden at RHS Wisley, to build the cataract between the top and second lake (pictured right).

In winter too, the scenes are spectacular, particularly if a big freeze comes like in the winter of 2009/10 and the lakes ice over, giving an eerie silence to the garden because the water in the lakes stops flowing (below). But Sheffield Park is still stunning in wintertime because Arthur Soames planted so many evergreen trees so there is always something to see here. Definitely a garden for all seasons.

When spring comes, life begins again at Sheffield Park as the daffodils and bluebells arrive. They are followed by spectacular displays of rhododendrons (below) - once again reflected in the lakes. Virginia Woolf, who lived at nearby Monk's House, described them as "massed upon the banks ... and when the wind passes over the real flowers, the water flowers shake and break into each other." 

The National Trust acquired several hundred acres of the gardens when the estate was broken up in the mid 1950's, although the house remains in private ownership. It has now become one of their flagship garden properties and attracts record numbers of visitors each year, particularly in the autumn. For other suggestions on spectacular autumn gardens to visit, you can use this link.