Chris Upton discovers two delightful secret gardens in Warwick.

From the moment Francis Hodgson Burnet wrote her children’s story, the idea of the secret garden has captured the imagination. There’s a little door, half concealed in cobwebs and ivy, and behind it a lost world, undisturbed, tranquil and magical.

Given the growth of tourism and visitor numbers, it’s not easy to keep a garden secret in the 21st century. We surround them with parking places, and pour into them in our thousands. If you have to queue up to smell the sweet peas, you know the tranquillity’s gone.

The town of Warwick, however, has two such secret gardens. Perhaps I shouldn’t even publicise them, but I will. If you want to keep the secret, don’t pass this on.

You can see the first garden from the walls of the always crowded castle. Down by the river, directly below Caesar’s Tower, lies Mill Street, and at No. 55 a delicate, waterside garden where rose, clematis and hydrangea tumble into the River Avon.

This must once have been the busiest of all possible spots, adjacent to the castle mill (now within the castle grounds) and in the shadow of the 14th-century bridge, which offered the only approach into Warwick from across the river.

But the bridge itself fell into decay, and the Earl moved the crossing a little further upsteam, next to what is now St Nicholas Park. Only in 1902 was decay turned into opportunity, and a garden began to be created in this elbow of ruined bridge and mill.

It was in 1951 that Arthur Measures and his family came to live at 55 Mill Street, and the garden has remained in the family ever since. It is now tended by Arthur’s daughter, Julia, and her husband. The £1.50 they charge to look round goes to charity.

Across the other side of town - a 10-minute hike uphill - lies a far more venerable charitable institution. Lord Leycester’s Hospital has long been one of Warwick’s must-see attractions, a remarkable assembly of medieval and Tudor buildings, high up on the Westgate wall above the High Street.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and favourite of Queen Elizabeth, took over the ancient guildhall and chapel in 1571 to provide almshouses – known as a hospital – for retired soldiers, a function it still fulfils to this day.

Visitors who can bear to drag themselves away from the castle will find the brethren still in
residence. Visit the chapel, the great hall, and the guildhall upstairs, part of which has been turned into a military museum. But that would be to overlook Lord Leycester’s secret garden, tucked away (as secret gardens are supposed to be) through a little doorway at the back.

No, not the knot garden. That’s a modern addition, planted to celebrate the Millennium. Follow instead the signs to the Master’s Garden.

Collegiate institutions such as medieval hospitals and university colleges usually had a garden, both to provide produce for the dining table, but also as a tranquil retreat wherein to contemplate life’s vicissitudes.

There are, in fact, two gardens here. One is the preserve of the master of the hospital, and it remains private today. A hornbeam hedge, framing an archway, separates the master’s from the brethren’s garden. The arch itself incorporates part of the Norman chapel of St James, which once stood over Westgate.

It was in this second garden that the retired soldiers grew fruit and vegetables, each in his own designated plot. The horticulture still continues, though much of the rest is devoted to flowers and shrubs.

This little garden was once a Warwick tourist attraction in its own right. The American novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, visited in 1857, and described the residents sitting in a little thatched summerhouse, smoking a pipe or playing at chequers. There was (and is) a gazebo too, tucked into one corner and dating from the 17th Century.

However, decay set in here as well, and by the 20th Century this was as lost a garden as any in Francis Burnet. The summerhouse had disappeared, as had the visitors. Luckily, a plan of the garden produced for the Board of Health in 1851 provided the evidence for restoration, and over the last 10 years or so, with funds from the Henry VIII Endowed Trust, the brethren’s garden has been brought back to life.

Early work on the site, begun by Susan Rhodes, wife of the then hospital master and a garden historian herself, uncovered the remains of an 18th-century pinery, where pineapples were grown in a pit. Pineapples have not been brought back into production – though the pit itself, next to the gazebo, is growing again.

The only snag with all such ventures is the need for volunteers. With only five ex-soldiers currently in residence at the hospital, the available manpower is limited. Gardens are, like timber-framed buildings, high maintenance.

But if the castle and its attractions are just too noisy and crowded for you, here are two places to retreat to. And no one will find you, because they’re a secret. Sssssh!