Biddulph Grange

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Biddulph Grange is a National Trust house and landscaped gardens, situated in Biddulph near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England.

It was developed by James Bateman (18121897), the accomplished horticulturist and landowner. He moved to Biddulph Grange around 1840, from nearby Knypersley Hall. He created the gardens with the aid of his friend and painter of seascapes John Cooke. The gardens were meant to display specimens from Bateman's extensive and wide-ranging collection of plants.

Bateman was a collector and scholar on orchids, President of the North Staffordshire Field Society, and served on the Royal Horticultural Society's Plant Exploration Committee. He had a number of notable sons who grew up at Biddulph Grange, including the painter Robert Bateman.

His gardens are a rare survival of the interim period between the Capability Brown landscape garden and the High Victorian style. The gardens are compartmentalised and divided into themes.

In 1861 Bateman and his sons gave up the house and gardens, and Bateman moved to Kensington in London. Biddulph was purchased in 1871 by Robert Heath. After the house burnt down in 1896 it was rebuilt by architect Thomas Bower.

The post-1896 house served as a children's hospital from 1923 until the 1960s; known first as the "North Staffordshire Cripple's Hospital" and later as the "Biddulph Grange Orthopaedic Hospital". The 15 acre (61,000 m²) garden became badly run-down and neglected during this period.

The house and gardens have now been fully restored by the National Trust, from 1988.

[edit] Biddulph Grange in fiction

The novel by Priscilla Masters, Mr Bateman's Garden (1987), is a fantasy set in the gardens.

[edit] Further reading

  • P. Hayden. Biddulph Grange, Staffordshire: a Victorian garden rediscovered. National Trust, 1989.

[edit] External links