About the garden
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The family home to the Hasell family since 1679, Dalemain is a beautiful mixture of medieval, Tudor & Georgian, situated in a landscape of rolling parkland, lakes and rugged Cumbrian hills. It is hardly surprising that when the first Edward Hasell set eyes on the medieval manor house in this beautiful valley, he fell in love with it.
The garden starts with a terrace walk created in the mid-1700s, of which very few remain in the British Isles. Tucked in behind, there is an Elizabethan cobbled courtyard, a Tudor knot garden for herbs and an English rose walk that boasts more than 100 old-fashioned roses. The kitchen garden has fruit trees that were planted 250 years ago, though the overall 'feel' of Dalemain is Edwardian.
Dalemain’s gardens are made up of many different kinds of planting, with big herbaceous borders and intimate flower beds. It has extraordinary plant combinations that complement or contrast each other. The more formal gardens make way for the wild garden with drifts of Meconopsis and martagon lilies in late spring, though it is fair to say that this is a garden that looks good in all seasons. The gardens also contain an earth sculpture and stumpery. The vernacular buildings include a grotto at the top of the garden where the gentle sound of Dacre Beck and the deer park behind are soothing to many visitors.
Guests who visit find Dalemain a place of peace and tranquillity. In the garden there are many paths to explore and places to escape to and the Dalemain bees are always busy. The Hasell family are often around and enjoy showing people the developments of the gardens. With Gardening Which? putting it in the Top Ten gardens of northern Britain, Dalemain is a garden to be savoured.
