Yorkshire Pride, Open Cast Mining and a Flower Show

Thoughts from the RHS’s inaugural show at Wentworth Woodhouse

After four and a half hours grinding up the M1, that first glimpse of Wentworth Woodhouse’s colossal Palladian frontage was exactly what I needed. There was something particularly satisfying about arriving at a completely new flower show venue. It doesn’t happen often, and despite the drizzle, this show felt palpably exciting from the moment I parked up on a hill overlooking the whole site.

Having done my A levels at a sixth form college in Rotherham, I already knew the warm welcome of Yorkshire folk and the beauty of this landscape, though I’d somehow never made it to Wentworth Woodhouse itself. I blame the Belvedere pub that stood right next to Thomas Rotherham College’s gates! When the RHS announced they were bringing their show here, I couldn’t resist the chance to revisit my seventeen-year-old self and prove that hating the A levels I’d chosen (hence the TERRIBLE results!) didn’t matter a jot in the long run.

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A House That Commands Attention

Hats off to the RHS Show team because the integration of show and setting was inspired. Unlike other RHS venues (Hampton Court Palace or Chelsea’s Royal Hospital) where the show feels slightly detached from the architecture, here we had gardens nestled comfortably against Britain’s longest country house façade. At 618 feet of Georgian grandeur stretching nearly twice the length of Buckingham Palace, this backdrop was pure theatre and took my breath away.

The Long Borders I was judging sat front and centre of this architectural masterpiece, and rightly so. These are the displays that actually inspire home gardeners rather than intimidate them – accessible ideas and plant combinations you can steal and adapt for your own borders back home. The positioning was perfect: putting easy inspiration centre stage at an estate that prioritises community engagement.

Built from the 1720s onwards for the Watson-Wentworth family, it passed to the Earls Fitzwilliams who made their fortune from coal. The irony wasn’t lost on me that where once this ‘Black Diamond House’ symbolised industrial might, built on ripping coal from the earth, we now celebrated horticultural prowess – the much more tender business of coaxing beautiful things from that same soil.

But there’s a darker chapter to this story that makes today’s celebration even more poignant.

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Right, let’s get into the real flower show coverage – not just the press release version.