North Yorks Dales Cottage Gardens, Arkengarthdale, Scar House (also known as Scar House)

The Dales Plants and Gardens project interviewed several people who had members of their families working at Scar House. One interviewee is Parkin Waller, whose brother worked as head gardener at Scar House during the 1930s. The Wallers grew up at Swallowholme Farm in upper Arkengarthdale. Parkin's brother first learned to garden on their farm, at an altitude of 420 metres. By comparison, the Scar House gardens are at a balmy 280 metres. Parkin's brother was one of the first in the area to build a greenhouse at home. The boiler was fuelled with coke and coal from an abandoned lead smelting mill close to the farm. In the warmed greenhouse he was able to grow lettuces out of season and tomatoes, which were a rarity in the northern dales.

Another interviewee, Eleanor Alderson, remembers her mother making jam for the guests at Scar House. Fruit such as raspberries, blackcurrants and strawberries were grown in the garden. Raspberry canes, blackcurrant bushes and lily of the valley were grown, netted and framed beneath the bridge wall. Strawberries were grown nearby in a netted and covered wooden frame. Rhubarb and gooseberries weren't grown; they were cottagers' fruit, capable of growing on their own anywhere. Tommy Milner, who came after Mr Waller as head gardener at Scar House in the late 1940s and 1950s, would give the fruit to his cousin, Eleanor's mother, whilst the housekeeper supplied the sugar. The jam was made, not in the kitchen of the big house, but at the gamekeeper's cottage on a range with its open fire fuelled with peat and ling from the moors.

Eleanor's father was the Scar House gamekeeper and had a tied cottage on the estate. Under the front windows of their cottage was a narrow flowerbed. Every two years Eleanor's father alternated potatoes and strawberries in this bed. They grew between the climbing roses cared for by Eleanor's mother who also grew phlox and delphiniums at the back of the cottage.

Only a few vegetables were grown at Scar House. Eleanor remembers Mr Milner giving her mother tomatoes from the greenhouse together with other vegetables such as cabbages and flowers when not needed for the shooting lodge. However, most of the produce either came up by train or across the moors by local carriers.

The head gardener always worked the garden alone, and still does today, only being given help from some of the other estate workers during winter and spring for digging, planting and potato setting.

The flower and strolling gardens run down to the Arkle beck and face out over the moors and now abandoned lead mines. Eleanor remembers roses and dahlias were grown in the garden during the 1940s and 1950s. Roses were no longer grown in the gardens at Scar House by the time Rowena Hutchinson arrived in Arkengarthdale from Leeds with her rose nursery business in 1960.

There are three photographs with this entry that show various parts of the gardens between the 1940s and 2009. In the 1940s photograph there are numerous rows of cane fruit; today they are gone, the ground turned into lawn and amalgamated with the flower garden area. The photograph dating from the 1960s shows rectangular patterns of densely planted rows of perennials and annuals between rows of low, clipped evergreen hedges and gravel paths surrounding and between them. By 2009 the hedges, still clipped have grown taller and lawns have replaced most of the internal borders, some perennials remain and young trees have been planted as decoration. The vegetable garden has become a garden of lawn with a gravel path around it and shrubs, perennials and empty pergolas close to the path.

From the mid-1950s onwards, Eleanor remembers Lady Sopwith having big flower arrangements in the house, perhaps influenced by Constance Spry who created the flower arrangements for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. Before then, flowers with long stems, such as delphiniums and chrysanthemums, were cut for the chapel, harvest festival and church and simply "put into vases with no artistry". One of the first arrangements made by Mr Milner and his wife was for Eleanor's wedding in 1955, "white carnations and something white and airy, you could see through it". The display was made for the altar table and later moved to the side chapel. Rhoda Fraser, Eleanor's niece, remembers that once a year her father, Eleanor's brother, would fill his van full of flowers from the Scar House borders taking them for harvest festival displays throughout the dale. Rhoda's mother went with him to arrange the displays.

Finally, a mention should be made of Rowena Hutchinson's rose nursery. Rowena returned to Arkengarthdale in 1960 to help her parents run their pub in Langthwaite. She brought with her stock plants from her rose nursery in Leeds. From this stock she propagated over 10,000 roses. Many of her bush roses were planted in the gardens at Scar House. Due to the altitude (290 metres) and penetrating frosts, the budding season in Langthwaite was short, six weeks, if lucky, compared to the three months that she had in Leeds. Like Mr Waller and Mr Milner, Rowena also had a glasshouse which she used for breeding roses and growing tomatoes.

Type

Estate

Purpose

Agriculture And Subsistence

Plant Environment

Environment

Principal Building

Recreational

Period

Victorian (1837-1901)

Survival

Extant

Hectares

2100