A window tax all but killed off the gardens at Thornton Hall, until owner Sue Manners breathed new life into the grounds of her historic home. Jenny Laue visits.

I’M standing on a little raised outcrop in Sue Manners’ fabulous, two-acre garden at Thorton Hall, near Darlington.

Leaning on the 16th Century walls surrounding it, I marvel at the riot of colour and the onslaught of floral fragrance.

Standing in the same spot just over 50 years ago, I would have seen nothing but green pasture. And it was all the fault of William III and his much-despised 1696 window tax.

“When this house was built in 1550 by Ralph Tailbois, it was laid out in three distinct walled gardens, with slightly raised beds so that the ladies could sit and admire all their flowers without moving. But then came the infamous window tax and I think they just gave up on gardening because there was no point,” explains Sue, indicating several of the bricked-up windows at the front of the house.

For the next few hundred years, the gardens at Thornton Hall were woefully neglected and for at least 250 years they were covered with grass, planted as orchards or paddocks used for grazing. Until one summer, in 1995, when Sue and her husband, Mike, decided they wanted to make something out of the paddocks, something their two children, Tori and Will, could enjoy.

So the hard work of converting a blank canvas into the beautiful floral painting began. Sue set about planting up the first one-acre walled garden with no knowledge of gardening whatsoever. She spent long hours removing the grass, a backbreaking task considering she did it all by hand. The first borders were planted with common garden plants, like petunias, pansies and geraniums, without consideration to colour schemes or plant compatibility, but Sue was bitten by the gardening bug.

“I was a bit like a child in a sweet shop,” she says of herself, laughing.

“I just wanted every plant. I bought one of each there was but didn’t stop to think that to make a real impact I’d have to buy several plants of each specimen.”

In the following years, Sue’s had help from friends and neighbours, who’ve given and sent her plants and seeds, and not long into her first gardening project, her eyes started to roam towards the second walled garden.

The year was 2000 and by now Sue had discovered a real green-fingered talent within herself and was thoroughly hooked on gardening by the time she rolled up her sleeves again and started to transform the second garden.

“We’ve been here for 19 years, but my husband’s father had lived here since the Fifties. If you look at some of the old pictures from then, you’d think what a mammoth task it is to convert this space. But because we never set out to do anything on this scale, it didn’t seem like it at the time. The gardens just slowly evolved,” says Sue.

Both gardens have had water features added – the second holds a larger wildlife pond and the first one boasts a pretty ornamental pond, complete with stream, rocks, waterfall and two adorable ducks, named Donald and Daffodil. A stroll around Thorton Hall gardens must be any gardener’s dream come true. The emphasis is definitely on beautiful flowers.

Every inch of the endless curvaceous borders snaking along the red brick walls is planted up according to colour scheme, plant association, form and foliage.

One of the most eye-catching borders in Sue’s garden, for instance, is full of yellow and purple flowering plants – two colours which theoretically shouldn’t look good next to each other, as they’re at opposite ends of the colour wheel, but which create a colour contrast that’s pleasing to the eye.

OTHER borders and island beds play host to unusual and rare perennials like delphinium, lupin, iris, peony, heuchera, alstromeria and penstemon.

Sue is particularly proud of her collection of hostas and the garden’s north-facing border is dedicated to more than 250 variants of this intriguing plant.

“It’s very much a plantsman’s garden,”

says Sue. “I love finding the right places for my plants. I always say they get dizzy in my garden because they go round and round until I’ve found the ideal spot for them.”

Now something of an horticultural expert, Sue is making the most of her knowledge and the natural resources available to her. Once bare, the garden walls are now, to put it into Sue’s own words, “clothed by a mass of exuberant fragrant roses, clematis, honeysuckle, jasmine and fan-trained fruit, including a peach”.

A garden like that is just made to be shown off and Sue and Mike do show it off each year to raise money for charity. Sue’s open days are so popular that she’s been able to raise large amounts of money even when it’s been rainy and blustery. There isn’t much that can deter visitors from coming in their hundreds to see Thornton Hall’s floral abundance.

“We’ve made thousands, but the best bit is hearing the oohs and aahs from the visitors,” she says. “A lot of my visitors say it’s like a secret garden, but I don’t really plant for visitors, I do it for myself. I just put in what I like and I’m happy if others like it too.”

■ Thornton Hall gardens will be open to the public in aid of local charities on Wednesday, July 1, from 2pm to 4pm and on Sunday, July 5, from 12.30pm to 4pm.

Group bookings are welcome this month only.

■ Thornton Hall is on the Staindrop Road, three miles west of Darlington on the B6279.