Gardens

The gardens around the Hall were largely replanted in the years before 1998, when the hotel opened. The garden is delineated by the ha-ha, which probably dates from the 19th century and runs along the east and south side of the Hall.

Notable aspects of today's garden are the pleached lime and laburnum tunnel in the south-east corner, abutting the restored formal knot garden with its clipped yew, box, purple sage, French lavender and santolina. In the centre of the lower parterre, a pleasing feature is the high, circular sorbus hedge within a yew hedge.

Beyond the beech hedge, on the other side of the knot garden, we have the most beautiful, ancient cedar of Lebanon tree. Its age is unclear, as it may well be up to five trees that were lashed together, growing up to look like one. If this is so, the tree dates back to at least 1763, at the time that Capability Brown did most of the planting in the parkland. It may well be several hundred years older than that.

Perhaps the greatest plantsman at Fawsley was a Mr Brown, praised endlessly in the Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener, August 1863. At that time the garden was quite extensive and comprised large, mixed borders up to 153 yards long and 9 feet wide, filled with gladioli, petunias, geraniums, hollyhocks, verbena and argentea. There were also peaches, nectarines and melons grown under glass and a fig house. This was possibly at the back of the Georgian stable block. We still have a fig that grows there today. Mr Brown grew not only figs there but also exotic orchids too.