65 and still growing strong...

The pandemic and lockdown are not the usual starting point for a gardening club article but bear with me.

The impact of those events is not to be underestimated: lives were lost, hearts were broken and futures ruined.

But there were lesser upshots too, one of them being the cancellation of Husthwaite and District Gardening Club’s sixtieth birthday celebrations.

It didn’t feel quite the same to celebrate the sixty first or second but sixty five... well that had a traditional ring to it - pensionable age for some a few years ago.

2024 marked the Club’s 65th anniversary having been founded in 1959 and so the search was on for a suitable venue to mark the event.

There had to be a garden of note and the provision of afternoon tea.

A pre-pandemic memory of a garden visit led to a call to a wonderful estate just outside Thirsk with beautiful gardens and a history to match.

Sion Hill Hall sits on the site of the 13th century manor of Kirby Wiske, the current building being Neo-Georgian built in 1913, and the gardens are spread over five acres and include a formal parterre, long herbaceous borders, a woodland walk and a walled kitchen garden as well as smaller “rooms” of lush greenery and scented blossoms.

In August more than thirty members of our Club were welcomed by Michael Mallaby, the custodian of Sion Hill Hall, who gave a lively account of the Hall and its occupants over the centuries.







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