Biddulph Grange Gardens

Biddulph Grange is a 15-acre garden that was developed by James Bateman. Bateman was a wealthy industrialist who spent all of his money and time in developing Biddulph. Bateman employed people to hunt down rare plants from China. My focus for the visit was to find one garden and explain the parts that make it special and a garden from that region of the world that it is supposed to be from.

 I chose to concentrate on the Chinese garden at Biddulph. China is completely hidden and in order to see the garden you must walk through a dark tunnel. Then you will enter the garden from a temple that you can see in the below left picture. From here you get an excellent view of the entire garden. In front of the temple is a small pond with fish and a bridge that crosses the pond. This is a common feature in Chinese gardens. You can also notice the vivid red colors used in the garden plantings and on the buildings and structures throughout. The whole garden has been rebuilt and all the colors are believed to be the originals. They found pieces of the original bridge and went from there to recreate the rest of the garden.

 Some of the artworks in the garden are the golden bull and the dragon beds that are made of small pebbles. As you can see Chris and Sarah pay no attention to the 'No Entry' sign to check out a little temple in the corner of the garden. Used throughout the garden are huge Japanese Maples that add different shades of red.

By Jared

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