THE GARDEN AT LINCOLN MEDIEVAL BISHOPS’ PALACE is a contemporary yet peaceful space elevated high above Lincoln city where you feel that you are soaring above the landscape along with the peregrine falcons who have nested nearby. Lincoln Medieval Bishop’s Palace is the only English Heritage property to have a vineyard, which is run with help from the local community.

You arrive in the garden through the labyrinth of the ruined Bishops’ Palace, emerging from the darkness of a cold stone room with a vaulted ceiling, down a flight of ancient steps, and then through a gap in the thick Medieval wall into the light. Because it’s on a south-facing slope you first see the garden from above.

At the back of the terrace is a buttressed Roman wall which, in summer, is self-seeded with red Valerian ( Centranthus ruber) – highly appropriate as this tough, opportunistic plant gets its name from an ancient Roman family, the Valerii.

From the viewing platform your eye immediately picks out nine tightly clipped hornbeam ( Carpinus betulus) piercing the air like the spires of the Cathedral. Narrow weathered brick paths at precise geometric angles running between the trees echo the intricacy of the ribs supporting the Cathedral’s ceiling. Each tree is sunk into a circlet of polished stainless steel, like the architectural bosses where the ribs intersect.

If this sounds overly complicated it’s not. You’re reminded of the elegant workmanship of medieval craftsmen, such as the silversmiths who made the chalices and communion plates and the stonemasons who sent ambitiously tall towers into the air.

On descending the viewing platform onto the grass below it feels as if you are in an outdoor church. Clipped yews with recesses for benches look like the stalls of the cathedral choir. Other echoes of medieval Christianity are carefully woven into the garden.

One of the shining steel disks encircling the hornbeam has a labyrinth etched into it, a reference to one of the earliest Christian symbols of man’s search for God. Another disk has curling vine leaves upon it pointing both backwards to the earliest inhabitants of Lincoln, the Romans who brought vines from Italy, and also forwards to the vineyard planted on the lower terrace. The vines were a gift from the city’s twin town in Germany, Neustadt-an-der-Weinstrasse in 1972.

Although this garden is mainly an elegant ‘green thought in a green shade’ the restrained planting around the edge alludes to the fact that it was once a working garden. Purple lavender with its medicinal qualities, tall spires of Acanthus – a plant that recurs again and again in medieval sculpture and wood carving – and the striking blood red climbing Rosa ‘Guinee’ enliven this subtle, restful space without overpowering it.

Lincoln Medieval Bishop’s Palace has the only official Vineyard within all English Heritage properties and Lincoln city. The vines were donated by Naustradt in Germany and the three varieties – Ortega, Muller Thurgau and Madelaine Sullvaina – are all white grape from the north side of the Rhine. When it was first planted in 1972 it was the most northerly vineyard in Britain, and it is now one of three.

‘The Vineyard Community Project’, put together early 2013 to help with the care of the vineyard, now involves a volunteer group from the local community, alongside a partnership with a local vineyard to help with the harvesting and the production of wine at the end of the season. The vineyard is an historical asset which has now been tamed into a functioning vineyard. This forgotten gem has become a flourishing natural environment that has not only encouraged the wildlife of the area to stop by, but also many new visitors.

• Source – English Heritage

Vines were first brought to this country by the Romans after AD280 when Emperor Probus decreed that vines could be grown outside Italy to give the troops something to do when they were not on duty. Although historically there would not have been a vineyard this far north, the one recently established in the lee of the castle is stocked with modern hybrid, frost hardy and early ripening variety of red grape, Vitus Vinifera x Vitis Amurensis. In time, this small vineyard should produce up to 1000 bottles of wine per year.

Just beyond the stone wall in the second picture you can see a glimpse of the maze:

The private maze was planted in time to reach maturity for the year 2000 millennium celebrations.

Information taken from the Bolton Castle guide book.