Kitchen Garden, RHS Garden Bridgewater, Salford

An accessible and inclusive kitchen garden with an experimental spirit 

Just west of Manchester, the 154-acre Salford site is the Royal Horticultural Society’s fifth public garden, opening to great acclaim in summer 2021.

Designed to evoke the experimental spirit of Victorian walled kitchen gardens, the main pathways of the garden are inspired by the route of the Bridgewater Canal whilst the smaller pathways and layout of the beds follow the pattern of local field boundaries of the same time, found in historic Ordnance Survey maps of the 1890s.

The horticultural intention is for the Kitchen Garden to be an experimental productive space that evolves and develops over time. The garden has distinct zones: an edible forest garden, a formal kitchen garden, and a herbal garden, with a fourth zone weaving around the stunning and historic surrounding walls, and showcasing the very best of horticultural creativity and skill in fruit training.

“…an inspirational setting for highlighting the importance of our food choices and how they impact our carbon footprint.” – Claire Takacs, Visionary: Gardens and Landscapes for our Future

Awards

European Garden Awards: 1st Prize, Design or Concept of a Contemporary Park of Garden, 2022

Landscape Institute Awards: Runner up, Dame Sylvia Crowe Award, 2022

Press

Claire Takacs: Visionary: Gardens and Landscapes for our Future

The Daily Telegraph: 5 ways the new RHS Bridgewater is paving the way forward for public gardens

Financial Times: Inside RHS Bridgewater, an urban garden for the north of England

BBC Two: The Great Northern Garden Build

Collaboration

Team: Royal Horticultural Society, Tom Stuart Smith, Gillespies, Arcadis, Hoare Lee 

Photography: Claire Takacs