The orchard house is a very fine structure and is quite a distinctive landmark in the surrounding district. It is thought to have been designed by Lord Armstrong in the 1870’s. It has a timber base and cast-iron glazing bars in the roof. It was built to for hardy and tender fruits in order to give them protection from the Northumberland climate.
The carpet bedding can be found next to the orchard house and in summer months is planted with diminutive foliage plants in geometric patterns. The plants are clipped fortnightly using sheep sheers to form a flat carpet like surface. Each bed requires 10,000 plants which are raised in the nursery at Cragside. During autumn the beds are planted with tulips, pansies and polyanthus in order to provide spring colour.
The last photograph is taken from the Dahlia walk and you can just see the carpet bedding in the background. Behind that the clock tower peeps out from in amongst the trees.
The clock tower originates from the 1860s and was the estate time piece and the pay office. Staff received their weekly pay in small, numbered, timber boxes about 4in (10cm) square. At the peak of construction there were more than 300 staff working at Cragside: gardeners, stone masons, carpenters, gamekeepers and labourers, all working a twelve-hour day. Under the watchful eye of William Bertram, the Estate Manager, this simple system ensured that all were properly paid. *
*From Cragside Garden Leaflet.
Tags: Cragside, Flowers, National Trust, Northumber- land, The Carpet Bedding, The Clock Tower, The Dahlia Walk, The Orchard House, Vacation
To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.
David Viscott
Tags: Cherie's Place Thought, Cragside, National Trust, Northumber- land, Rock Garden, Vacation
Cragside even has its own holiday cottages with spectacular views of the garden and Rothbury.
The building was once known as the Cottage in the Park and was built in around 1865 for the estate manager, William Bertram, who lived there for over 40 years. The house has many features in common with the original part of Cragside and is thought to be designed by the same unknown architect.
Tags: Cragside, Flowers, National Trust, Northumber- land, The Cottage in the Park, Vacation
Just above the Italian Terrace is the Dahlia walk, which is planted annually with over 700 plants. In the autumn it is a riot of colour and I would highly recommend a visit.
Tags: Cragside, Flowers, National Trust, Northumber- land, The Dahlia Walk, Vacation
I am going to be busy again for a few days, but before that I shall walk you down to the Formal Gardens. I have found a nice bench where you can sit and enjoy the gardens, I shall meet you there later 
The Loggia was probably made at Armstrong’s Elswick works. It is made of cast iron with a glass roof and sides, but is left open at the front. The oak seat was designed to incorporate the flat-topped ‘A’ which Armstrong used as a monogram elsewhere at Cragside, was made by Alan Forster in 2006.
Tags: Flowers, Formal Garden, History, Italian Terrace, Northumber- land, Vacation
The rock gardens extend all around the house and cover 4.5 acres. Most of the rock has been man-laid, using fell sandstone from the surrounding moors. This garden had become badly overgrown and since 1988 has been gradually restored, with the work still ongoing.
There are three distinct areas. The oldest, of the 1870s, north and west of the house, it is most unusual, with an almost ‘tumbling’ effect; this may be the last surviving example of its type. The two cascades in the design bring into the garden the movement and sound of water. Below, the lower west rock garden of the mid-1880s is more ordered in construction. South and east of the house, a large band of natural rock is enhanced with late 1880s-early 1890s pavement and strata-style rock.*
*From Cragside Garden Leaflet.
Tags: Cragside, History, National Trust, Northumber- land, Rock Garden, Vacation
Cragside was the home of William George Armstrong who started his working life as a lawyer, but his real passion was for science and mechanics. Over time he was able use his interest in mechanics to start a new career in engineering. In 1847 he bought land at Elswick by the Tyne and established the partnership, W. G. Armstrong and company.
In 1863 Armstrong, having had no proper holiday for fifteen years because of the demands of his business, decided to take an angling trip to Rothbury. His sickly boyhood had been marred by a bad chest. ‘More than once,’ he remembered, ‘an apparently incurable cough was quickly removed by coming to Rothbury, and had it not been for its curative effect there would have been no Cragside’.*
The potential of a house in this setting grasped his imagination greatly and his passion in gardening can be seen throughout the grounds. His first success as an engineer was to apply hydraulics to lifting heavy weights in order to harness the power of water and he was also a gun-maker and builder of warships. Within Cragside you can see several of his engineering achievements including a hydraulic lift which lightened the load for the servants when carrying coal to the upstairs rooms.
Cragside was the first house to be lit by hydro-electric power by using water from the Black Burn and Nelly’s Moss to provide a head of water to a turbine in the Power House.
*Source – National Trust Guide book
Tags: Cragside, History, National Trust, Northumber- land, Vacation
