Bridge End Gardens is a group of linked ornamental gardens in Saffron Walden, Essex, England. The gardens are listed Grade II* on the Register of Parks and Gardens. [1] They are located off Castle Street, close to the Fry Art Gallery. Features include a maze.
Bridge End Gardens were built part on fields and previous garden on the edge of Saffron Walden and covers an area of 2.7 hectares (7 acres). [2] [3] The area was set out as gardens from around 1828 by Atkinson Francis Gibson and his wife Elizabeth. [2] From 1838, his son Francis Gibson – who, as a Quaker, was interested in horticulture [3] and had also completed a garden design for his sister – began creating a new garden with the help of a local nurseryman William Chater (breeder of Chater Hollyhocks). [4] [5] Gibson considered the Dutch garden to be of utmost importance, and as such should be visible to visitors as they enter. [3] The hedge maze (based upon the layout of the maze at Hampton Court Palace) was planted around 1870, and restored in 1984 with 11,000 yew seedlings, [5] by which stage the garden was under the management of a local agent and was used as a venue for shows by the Saffron Walden horticultural society. [1]
The site opened to the public in 1902 and the borough council took over responsibility for its management from 1918, designating it as a 'public pleasure ground'. [2]
In 1987, the garden was listed with English Heritage. [1] In the same year, the maze was replanted and the kitchen garden cleared. Between 2002 and 2006 the garden was restored back to the 1870 plan. [6] The kitchen garden reopened between 2009 and 2011, and in 2015 introduced a visitors centre with toilets, designed to look like a converted toolshed. [5] Most non-native plant additions would have been in the UK by the time of Francis Gibson's death in 1858. [5]
Bridge End Gardens has participated in the Maze Festival, which marks the town of Saffron Walden's three mazes. There is an historic turf labyrinth maze on the common and another in the town's Jubilee Gardens. It also holds 'The 3 Maze Challenge', an event founded by William Stanley. [7] The first maze festival took place in 2011. [8]
A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lead unambiguously through a convoluted layout to a goal. The pathways and walls in a maze are typically fixed, but puzzles in which the walls and paths can change during the game are also categorised as mazes or tour puzzles.
Saffron Walden is a market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England, 12 miles (19 km) north of Bishop's Stortford, 15 miles (24 km) south of Cambridge and 43 miles (69 km) north of London. It retains a rural appearance and some buildings of the medieval period. The population was 15,504 at the 2011 census.
Uttlesford is a local government district in Essex, England. Its council is based in the market town of Saffron Walden. At the 2011 Census, the population of the district was 79,443.
Audley End House is a largely early 17th-century country house outside Saffron Walden, Essex, England. It is a prodigy house, known as one of the finest Jacobean houses in England.
Saffron Walden is a constituency in Essex represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Kemi Badenoch, a Conservative.
Ashdon, is a village and civil parish in Essex, England. It is about 4 miles (6 km) northeast of Saffron Walden and 23 miles (37 km) northwest from the county town of Chelmsford. The village is in the district of Uttlesford and the parliamentary constituency of Saffron Walden. The village has its own Parish Council.
Tatton Park is an historic estate in Cheshire, England, north of the town of Knutsford. It contains a mansion, Tatton Hall, a medieval manor house, Tatton Old Hall, Tatton Park Gardens, a farm and a deer park of 2,000 acres (8.1 km2). It is a popular visitor attraction and hosts over a hundred events annually. The estate is owned by the National Trust, who administer it jointly with Cheshire East Council. Since 1999, it has hosted North West England's annual Royal Horticultural Society flower show.
A hedge maze is an outdoor garden maze or labyrinth in which the "walls" or dividers between passages are made of vertical hedges.
Friends' School was a Quaker independent school located in Saffron Walden, Essex, situated approximately 12 miles south of the city of Cambridge, England. The school was co-educational and accommodated children between the ages of three and 18.
The Fry Art Gallery is an art gallery in Saffron Walden, Essex. Recognised as an Accredited Museum by Arts Council England, it displays work by artists of national significance who lived or worked in North West Essex during the twentieth century and after. The gallery is known for its comprehensive collection of work by the Great Bardfield Artists, including Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious.
RHS Garden Harlow Carr is one of five public gardens run by the Royal Horticultural Society. It is located on the western edge of Harrogate in the English county of North Yorkshire.
Sydney Gardens is a public open space at the end of Great Pulteney Street in Bath, Somerset, England. The gardens are the only remaining eighteenth-century pleasure gardens in the country. They are Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England.
The Hundred Parishes is an area of the East of England with no formal recognition or status, albeit that the concept has the blessing of county and district authorities. It encompasses around 450 square miles of northwest Essex, northeast Hertfordshire and southern Cambridgeshire. The area comprises just over 100 administrative parishes, hence its name. It contains over 6,000 listed buildings and many conservation areas, village greens, ancient hedgerows, protected features and a historical pattern of small rural settlements in close proximity to one another.
Barclays Bank, Market Place, Saffron Walden, Essex, England has been designated a Grade II* listed building by Historic England. It was first listed in 1972.
Hill House is a 19th-century building at 75 High Street, Saffron Walden, Essex, England. It is listed Grade II.
Atkinson Francis Gibson was a British banker.
Francis Gibson (1805-1858), was a British banker and businessman.
St Mary the Virgin is the parish church of Saffron Walden, Essex. It is the largest non-cathedral church in Essex with an overall length of 183 feet (56 m) and the spire, 193 feet (59 m) high, which is the tallest in Essex. It was designated as a Grade I listed building in 1951.
Janet Wheeler is a British composer and choral conductor, based in Saffron Walden, Essex.
Elizabeth Martha Beckley was a pioneering British astronomical photographer.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)