York Castle Museum

Planting

History

The Rockery

The Museum Gardens date back to the 1830s when the Yorkshire Philosophical Society opened the museum.

They appointed landscape architect, Sir John Murray Naysmith, to draw up a design for the gardens which was subsequently laid out in the Gardenesque style to show off the buildings and plant specimens as they were introduced.

A conservatory was constructed to house tropical plants such as sugar cane, coffee, tea, ginger and cotton as well as orchids and epiphytes.

A pond was built to contain a large rare water-lily, the Victoria Amazonica. A charge was made to the public to view the gardens on certain days.

Today

The fern garden

Although the pond and the conservatory have now gone, the ten-acre gardens are still a listed Botanical Garden.

Recent planting developments have included a new Fern Garden, Butterfly Border and American Prairie Border, as well as extending the Rockery. Plans are in hand to develop an Astronomy Border next to the York Observatory.

The gardens have many lime, yew and holly trees, as well as oak, beech, elm, silver birch and walnut trees.

The Pear-barked Beech in autumn, one of our seven Champion Trees

Rarer varieties include a Cut Leaved Alder, three Cut Leaved Hornbeams, a Red Horse Chestnut, a Monkey Puzzle tree and an Indian Chestnut.

Seven of our trees are county Champion Trees, the biggest examples in Yorkshire. Click here to find out about them in our Star Objects pages.