Malcolm Warne finds Wynyard Hall’s the Gardens Cafe better without rose-tinted spectacles

THE rose garden at Wynyard Hall could be thought of as the final piece in the jigsaw for the man who rescued the most stately of the North-East’s stately homes from ruin.

Sir John Hall bought the hall and estate just to the north of Stockton from the Londonderry family in 1987 and after developing the MetroCentre – the UK’s first US mall-type shopping centre – and running Newcastle United at a time when the football club still had principles sank all his time and considerable fortune into restoring the hall.

It was in a parlous state. Many millions have been spent in restoring it and finding a new role for it as a four star hotel, restaurant, wedding and events/functions venue. And as no self-respecting “resort destination” can be without a golf course and spa these days it has those too.

But the rose garden is something rather special, born of Sir John’s childhood memories of his father tending his modest strip garden in the Northumberland pit village of Ashington. His love of roses came from his father and the inspiration for the restoration of the walled garden at Wynyard is a rekindling of that love.

Opened last August, the garden is very much at the embryonic stage but it will in time be spectacular. Sir John doesn’t do half measures at Wynyard.

As befits any attraction these days, there is a visitor centre and also a cafe – which is why we were there on Easter Monday with a goodly number of other folk. And as rose gardens, especially infant ones, are not exactly at their best at the end of March, they were not there to check out the quality of Sir John’s floribunda.

The visitor centre, apart from being the entrance to the garden (£5 admission) is split between the cafe and a farm/gift shop. They sort of merge into one another rather attractively. One moment you wondering if that jar of sugo pasta sauce really is a good as the £4 price tag suggests and the next watching someone sinking their chops into a well-buttered tea cake.

As farm shops go, this is a decidedly posh one. There’s a limited range of local produce but there’s some good stuff. Bacon and sausages from Dropswell Fram at Trimdon, cheese made by the Parlours at Morden and milk from Acorn Dairies near Darlington found their way into our basket.

The cafe is light and airy with floor-to-ceiling picture windows overlooking the garden and an outside terrace which will be very tempting in the summer.

It’s cafeteria-style service and there is a choice of quiches with salad, sandwiches, paninis, cakes, and other sweet, sticky stuff plus soup and one hot dish – chicken and mushroom pie served with roasted new potatoes and mixed vegetables.

I had the pie (£8) and it was as good as it gets. Meltingly tender chicken, a rich white wine, cream and tarragon-heavy sauce and golden, buttery shortcrust pastry, we (Sylvia had a nibble) thought it on a par with the fabled steak pies dished out by the dozen in Barkers Kitchen in Northallerton (that’s the recently re-furbed restaurant at the back of the store, not the cafe bistro at the front).

The potatoes were fine but the frozen mixed veg were, well... frozen mixed veg.

Sylvia, when not testing parts of my pie, had a well-filled ham sandwich (£3) made with good quality, lean meat and bread cut from a home-made cob loaf. Perfectly acceptable.

Sylvia also had a little bit of my apple pie (£3.50), served with cream, well-filled with fruit and again there was evidence of good pastry-making skills .

With a diet Coke (£1.90 )and a Luscombe raspberry crush (£2.50) our bill came to a shade shy of £19. With the exception of the £2.50 for the raspberry, we thought it reasonable value given the setting.

Our only beef was the service. I always thought that the cafeteria was invented to make serving food to large number of people efficient and quick. Perhaps they were having an off day, perhaps someone had phoned in sick. Whatever, despite the fact the cafe was only half full, they seemed to really struggle.

The young lady who appeared to be charge had the sort of expression and manner which suggested she really didn’t want to be there on a bank holiday Monday and because she was behind a counter, even a token gesture exhibiting just the tiniest amount of charm or engagement was strictly off limits. And then there was her young male colleague who we suspected may have been drawn from other duties. He transferred my slice of apple pie from serving platter to dish with all the speed and confidence of someone trying to defuse an unexploded bomb.

One last thing. Wynyard Hall cannot be allowed to get away with the message on the home page of its website which says “Welcome to Wynyard Hall, on the outskirts of Durham in the Tees Valley.” That might be clever marketing but it’s geographical nonsense. Sort it out Sir John. Be proud of Billingham.