The Walled Garden

29/09/2026

🌱 Learn practical gardening skills at the Walled Garden in Leyland.

We’re working with Lancashire Adult Learning to bring an Introduction to Gardening Skills course to Worden Park this November.

Whether you want to look after your own garden, develop skills for volunteering, explore a future in horticulture or simply enjoy learning something new, this is a welcoming place to start.

You’ll learn to identify plants and trees, care for garden tools and carry out everyday garden maintenance. No previous gardening experience is needed.

📅 Starts Tuesday 3 November 2026
🕐 Tuesdays, 1–3.30 pm, for four weeks
📍 The Walled Garden, Worden Park, Leyland, PR25 1DJ
👥 For adults aged 19+

This intro course is fully funded for anyone living in Lancashire and aged 19+. There is no earnings criteria for the introduction course, so this is open to all.

The course includes certification on successful completion, with opportunities to progress to Level 1 and Level 2 study.

Please share with anyone who might be interested, including colleagues, volunteers and local community groups.



Find out more and register https://rootedconnections.org.uk/events/introduction-to-gardening-skills-lancashire

23/09/2026

🌱 Please share! We’re looking for young people locally who might benefit from Roots & Routes at the Walled Garden in Worden Park.

It’s a fully funded, small-group programme for young people who may be struggling with confidence, anxiety, isolation, or engaging with education, training, or employment.

No gardening experience needed, just a supportive place to get involved, build confidence, and take that next step at their own pace 💚

Parents, carers and professionals can refer 👇

🌱 Know a young person who could use a different kind of next step?

We’re now taking referrals for Roots & Routes, our new fully funded programme at the Walled Garden in Worden Park, Leyland.

It’s for young people who may be out of education, employment or training, at risk of disengaging, or simply finding traditional learning and support environments difficult.

There are no classrooms and no gardening experience is needed.

Instead, we’ll spend time outdoors, in a small and supportive group, getting involved in:

🌱 Growing and gardening
🐝 Wildlife and biodiversity projects
🛠️ Hands-on projects around the Walled Garden
🤝 Working alongside others and being part of something

Along the way, we’ll help young people build confidence, routine, practical skills, social connection and a sense of achievement, at their own pace.

Roots & Routes may be particularly suitable for young people experiencing anxiety, low confidence, social isolation, neurodivergence, SEMH needs, or other barriers that make more formal settings difficult.

The goal isn't to have everything figured out.
Sometimes the first step is simply finding somewhere you feel comfortable turning up. 💚

📍 The Walled Garden, Worden Park, Leyland
🌱 Fully funded
🔗 Find out more / register or refer:
https://rootedconnections.org.uk/events/roots-and-routes-young-adult-gardening-programme-leyland

Parents, carers and professionals can refer.

Please share; you might help this reach a young person who really needs something like this.

21/09/2026

🌿 Fancy some fresh air and good company this afternoon?

Our Monday Social Gardening session is on today at The Walled Garden, Worden Park, Leyland - 1–3pm.

Come along for a couple of hours of gentle gardening, lovely people and a warm cuppa. ☕🌱

There are tasks for all abilities, so you don't need to be an experienced gardener, just turn up as you are and get involved in whatever feels right for you.

We hope you've had a lovely weekend… but if you haven't, that's okay too. 💚 Come and spend a little time outdoors with us, we can pretty much guarantee you'll leave feeling more uplifted than when you arrived.

🌿 1–3pm today
📍 The Walled Garden, Worden Park, Leyland
☕ Warm drinks, friendly faces & plenty to get stuck into
💚 Everyone welcome

18/09/2026

***Update: the first 6 week programme is now fully booked! What an amazing response 😊 we can't wait to meet you all. If you would like to join and missed out on the first one, we are running 2 more 6-week programmes so please pop your details in the form and we will contact you as soon as they go live. 💚

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🌿 We are so excited to announce our first fully funded course at the Walled Garden!

Held – a project by Rooted Connections is a new six-week wellbeing programme created for parents and carers of children aged 0–5.

Thanks to funding from South Ribble Borough Council, places on the programme are fully funded. 🤍

Held is about making some time and space for you.

Over six weeks, the same small group will come together at the Walled Garden to explore meditation, breathwork, gentle movement, journalling and creative activities, with time to talk, reflect, share and connect with other parents and carers navigating the early years.

There’ll be time outdoors, herbal teas, conversation and the chance to slow things down for a little while.

Held puts your wellbeing at the centre. 🌱

✨ Fully funded places
🌿 Six weekly sessions with the same small group
🤍 For parents & carers of children aged 0–5
📍 The Walled Garden, Worden Park, Leyland
🧘 Meditation • breathwork • gentle movement • creativity • sharing • connection

One booking secures your place for all six weeks.

Places are limited to keep the group small.

Bookings are now open:
👉 https://rootedconnections.org.uk/events/held-wellbeing-for-parents-leyland

A huge thank you to South Ribble Borough Council for supporting us to bring our first fully funded course to the Walled Garden. 💚

07/09/2026

Thank you for the sharing these wonderful seeds with us 💚

25/08/2026

Chapter 7 of our 250 years series... The Great Vine of Worden 🍇

🌿250 Years of Worden Walled Garden

Chapter 7, The Great Vine of Worden 🍇

This is one of the Walled Garden’s most remarkable living links with its past.

The old, gnarled wood above these grapes belongs to a Black Hamburg vine whose story has become almost as intriguing as the garden itself.

Grapes have been grown at Worden for generations.

We know they were important here during the Farington era, and by the nineteenth century the garden had its own vine house. Later records describe several Black Hamburg vines growing here, capable of producing an astonishing 120–140lb of grapes in a good year.

But the grapes weren’t always simply harvested for the garden.

By the 1950s, a lovely tradition had developed. Worden’s annual grape harvest was distributed to retirement homes across South Ribble, with the Mayor taking the grapes out into the community.

We know the Faringtons had been growing grapes here for generations before that, but we’re still trying to discover exactly when the tradition of sharing Worden’s harvest began.

There’s something rather lovely about it.

Something grown within these walls being used to connect with people beyond them. 💚

But the vine has another story attached to it…

For many years, people have said that Worden’s vine has a connection to the famous Great Vine at Hampton Court Palace — supposedly grown from a cutting taken from it.

It’s a wonderful story.

But is it true?

That’s something we’ve been trying to uncover.

And, as is often the case with history, the answer isn’t quite as straightforward as we’d hoped…

📖 From the archives: Records from the early 1990s describe Black Hamburg vines at Worden producing up to 140lb of grapes annually, alongside the long-running tradition of sharing the harvest with local retirement homes.

💚 Writing the next chapter by uncovering the last 250 years.

Next week: The Hampton Court Mystery — Is Worden’s Vine Really a Cutting from the Great Vine? 🍇

16/08/2026

🌼 A little bit of folklore has appeared in the Walled Garden…

This beautiful mullein (Verbascum) has somehow found enough soil to grow from the tiniest gap beside one of our old doorways – so we’re leaving it exactly where it chose to be.

Mullein has a fascinating history. For centuries it appeared in traditional herbal medicine, particularly in preparations for coughs, sore throats and respiratory complaints.

It has folklore too. Mullein was associated with protection and warding off evil, while its tall dried flower stems were once dipped in fat or wax and used as torches – giving rise to old names including “hag’s taper.”

And its usefulness hasn’t ended. Its yellow flowers provide food for pollinators, while Verbascum is also the food plant of the brilliantly named mullein moth caterpillar. 🐛🐝

All of that history and wildlife value from a plant that simply decided to grow in a crack beside a 250-year-old garden wall. 💚

Sometimes nature really does choose the perfect spot. 🌱

*Traditional uses mentioned for historical interest only.

15/08/2026

Some more history 😁

🌿 250 Years of Worden Walled Garden

Chapter 5 – The Gardeners Who Brought It to Life

A garden isn't remembered because someone built it.

It's remembered because someone cared for it.

Day after day. Year after year. Generation after generation.

Once the walls of the Walled Garden were complete, the real work had only just begun.

Seeds had to be sown.

Fruit trees carefully trained.

Glasshouses managed.

Vegetables harvested.

Walls maintained.

Every season brought new challenges, and every season depended on the skill, knowledge and dedication of the gardeners who worked here.

Thanks to memories recorded from former gardeners and estate workers, we know the Walled Garden was cared for by a Head Gardener and a team of three or four gardeners. Together they supplied Worden Hall with an extraordinary variety of produce, including salads, tomatoes, asparagus, potatoes, pears, apples and grapes.

One particularly special memory came from Mrs Crook, whose father began working at Worden as a gardener in **1896**, later becoming Head Gardener.

She remembered Sir William ffarington walking through the Walled Garden every morning with his dog, inspecting the crops, chatting with the gardeners and recording the day's weather before continuing his walk around the estate.

It's a wonderful glimpse into a garden at the height of its working life.

For nearly two centuries, this wasn't simply a beautiful place.

It was a place of purpose.

A place of knowledge.

A place of craftsmanship.

Today, that work looks different.

We're no longer growing food for a country house.

Instead, volunteers are helping restore the garden for the whole community.

Different people.

Different purpose.

The same spirit of care.

Perhaps that's what has kept this place alive for almost 250 years.

Not just the bricks.

Not the buildings.

But the people willing to give their time, their knowledge and a little bit of themselves.

Every generation has had its gardeners.

Today, they're our volunteers.💚

📷 **About this photograph:** The image accompanying this post shows Victorian kitchen gardeners from the period (from 'The Victorian Kitchen Garden' by Jennifer Davies). Although they didn't work at Worden, they offer a glimpse into the lives of the skilled men and women whose working day would have been very similar to those who cared for the Walled Garden here in Leyland.

🌿 Writing the next chapter by uncovering the last 250 years.

💚 Next week: Growing the Extraordinary – How Worden Grew Peaches and Nectarines in Lancashire.**

13/08/2026

Who's enjoying the history? 😁

🌿 250 Years of Worden Walled Garden

Chapter 4 – Who Built the Walled Garden?

If I asked you who built the Walled Garden...

Most people would probably answer:

"The Faringtons."

And, in many ways, they'd be right.

But history isn't built by one person.

It's built by many.

While researching the garden, we came across this remarkable page from **Sir William ffarington's cash book.

At first glance, it's just a list of payments.

Look a little closer...
..and the people behind the garden begin to appear.

🧱 Addison – supplied 58,000 bricks.

📏 Matthew Clitherow – worked on the garden walls before later measuring them.

🪨 Robert Gudgeon – supplied the coping stones that have protected the walls for nearly 250 years.

🔨 John Sumner – crafted the ironwork for the heated flue doors.

🌳 And perhaps our favourite entry of all...

On 8 January 1778, Giles Boardman supplied ten peach and nectarine trees.

Just a handful of names.

A few entries in an old account book.

Yet together, they tell the story of the people who physically created one of Lancashire's finest historic kitchen gardens.

They probably never imagined that, almost 250 years later, people would still be reading their names.

Or that the walls they helped build would still be standing.

History often remembers the people who commissioned great places.

But places like this were built by craftspeople.

Brickmakers.

Bricklayers.

Blacksmiths.

Gardeners.

People whose legacy isn't found in statues...
..but in work that simply stood the test of time.

As we restore the Walled Garden today, it's impossible not to think about those people.

We know so little about their lives.

Yet every volunteer, visitor and child who walks through these gates is benefiting from the care, pride and craftsmanship they left behind.

Perhaps that's the greatest legacy any of us can hope for.

Not to be remembered for our names...

But for the difference we leave behind.

🌿 Writing the next chapter by uncovering the last 250 years.

📖 From the archives: Sir William ffarington's cash book records payments to the people involved in constructing the Walled Garden during 1777–78, including 58,000 bricks, work on the garden walls, iron flue doors, and ten peach and nectarine trees.

💚 Next week: The Gardeners Who Brought It to Life.

Which of these names caught your attention most? We'd love to know in the comments—and if you have family stories connected to Worden Hall or the Walled Garden, we'd love to hear those too.

09/08/2026

Have you tried mulberries before? ☺️

One of my favourite things about this garden is our mulberry tree.

It's thought to be over 170 years old and every summer it produces hundreds of delicious berries.

I've lost count of the number of visitors who've said, "I've never tasted a mulberry before."

If you're passing through the garden while they're in season, do have a look. It's one of those little experiences that makes this place so special.

If you're visiting over the next week or so, you're very welcome to pick a couple of the ripe ones and give them a try. Small donations welcome when you visit💚

Just beware of the red-stained hands and clothes! 😂