O'er moorland and brae: Merchant's dreams

We took time out to visit Biddulph Grange gardens one wet afternoon in our last month. This is not far from where we were spending the night at our 'home base' in Cheshire before we again headed off to spend a few weeks in Wales. We came this route, really, to go to the doctor. Along the west coast of Scotland I began experiencing pain, deep internal side pain, at a consistent time very early each morning, which started depriving me of sleep. I then developed an angry red blotchy rash and the Emergency staff at the Edinburgh Hospital were flummoxed by the symptoms as perhaps the rash was not well developed at that time. Here, though, it was quickly and correctly diagnosed as Shingles and handfuls of painkillers were the solution as it was too late to attempt the quick cure for Shingles.

What a joy Biddulph Grange gardens turned out to be. We are not easily enthused by gardens. We've visited many, including the famed Monet's garden in Giverny, and were unimpressed. Made solely for tourists, we thought. Little about that garden would have given Monet much joy or inspiration.

Biddulph Grange garden, though, is a different beast. It was built by James Bateman, a contemporary of Charles Darwin, and gardens, at the time, were all the rage, probably thanks to Darwin and his publications, as well as his collection of exotic seeds. James took a different approach. He made his garden joyful, whimsical, even frivolous: he was not interested, solely, in the biological aspects of the plants.

So, his garden is first and foremost eclectic. He has gathered diverse plants and not been afraid to put them all into the one garden. Today, landscape designers talk of gardens as an extension of the home. They use the term 'rooms' to refer to parts of gardens that have different functions. But James beat them to it. His gardens are laid out in quite discrete 'rooms', amazingly distinct, yet wonderfully secreted from each other so that one does not intrude on the other: Egyptian, Oriental, Italianate and, even, English Rose.

Occasionally, you are able to peek from one to another, into a piece of garden either below or above you, as is typical in Eastern gardens. Or, through a wee frame that gives you just a hint of what is to come if you go that way or uncover that section of the garden.

And unravelling the garden really is an exercise in exploration. It is somewhat like peeling an onion, there are so many layers and delights. How many hours he must have spent designing it. And enjoying that design process.

We loved it. We viewed it in the rain, which meant we had it virtually to ourselves, and that made it extra special. The Grange, itself, is private: not for viewing. A developer bought the home and turned it into nine high end apartments.

Technically, the gardens are separate from their dwellings, but their setting is impossible to move. So, after the tourists have gone of an evening, owners of these apartments must surely take their wineglasses into one of these special places, and consider it their own. And thank James Bateman for his passion and creativity in designing such a glorious spot.

Another day, and not 15 kilometres away, we visited Quarry Bank Mill after slowly negotiating a call to hunt that was going on in one of our back streets at the time, filled as it was with horses, hunters, and dogs in a chaotic mill. We cannot understand how we missed visiting Quarry Bank in all the years that we lived, studied and explored this area when the children were young, but are so glad we found it this time.

Quarry Bank Mill was founded in 1784 by young Samuel Greg, when he took over his uncle's cloth merchant business, and set about expanding it. He dreamed of, and built, a mill powered by a water wheel turned by the fast flowing Styal River. This was built in order to quickly spin coarse cotton yarn for the booming cotton industry. Up till then spinning had been done by hand. Samuel didn't stop at building his mill, but built housing for all his workers, along with an Apprentice House for the young children he used in the factory.

Child labour was all too common at the time of Samuel's mill, as were slaves. Samuel, a typical merchant of his time, also owned a sugar plantation in the West Indies, so he had enslaved Africans as well as unpaid child workers. But he was an educated man, a religious man, even a visionary, and he had this yen to build an efficient factory, which he set about doing, and luckily, he was open to his wife's softening and humane influence, so as Quarry Bank grew, conditions there became better and better for the employees.

Samuel built houses for his workers that were two-up, two-down dwellings, each had a cistern and a good sized garden where they were encouraged to grow their own fresh vegetables. And the children, the ninety unpaid apprentices, lived in a dormitory house which had its own privy. Amazing for the time.

The children came from workhouses, had no parents, and were given an education at Quarry Mill, so their lives were probably better than most child workers, given the time, though there is no doubt they worked long and arduous hours: carding, combing, spinning, weaving.

By 1848, laws were enacted which prevented such child labour, but Quarry Bank Mill still went on to thrive, producing spun cotton, and later, cloth textile, until 1959, when it finally closed.

It is now an excellent museum in an extraordinary condition. The architecture of the mill is that stylish minimalist industrial look that continues to look brilliant even today. And the gardens, set on the banks of the burbling Styal, make it not only liveable, but even beautiful. Those worker children may well have found a large measure of happiness here.

But the gem of these merchant dream places we have visited turned out to be Port Sunlight, over on the Wirral Peninsula. We could have spent days here. Port Sunlight was conceptualised by William Lever, of Lever Brothers, now Unilever, makers of Sunlight Soap and all the other soap products that, traditionally, had been made at their factory at Warrington.

William determined that a new factory was needed on this flat empty land stretching south of the Mersey, together with a village to house all the employees. It was close to docks for shipping, and inland routes for distribution. it is still a great location, even today. So he set about hiring thirty different architects, giving each a section of the village to display their ideas. So, you might think the village would have an odd look, without any overarching design holding it all together, but, it doesn't.

Some of the houses are decorated with carved wood and moulded masonry, others are half timbered, while others have twisted brick pepperpot chimneys and leaded glass windows. The housing is lovely. William didn''t stop at building housing for his employers. He and his wife believed that healthy workers were happy ones and they included in the village all that they could to see their vision work: schools, a temperance hotel, public baths, shopping facilities, reading halls and the Lady Lever Art Gallery, a beautiful building that still holds pride of place in the heart of town to this day.

The whole comfortably wraps its arms around the parts, and this village is quite picture postcard perfect, and utterly beguiling. There is even talk that it might become UNESCO listed. Folk who live there, even today, never want to leave. We are not surprised.