NEW Gaskell Garden Trail
Posted
19th July 2022
in news
‘Every Plant that Peeps up is a Treasure’ wrote Elizabeth Gaskell about her garden in Manchester, and this summer we are taking families out into the garden to discover these treasures for themselves with a brand new digital and paper-based trail.
This new Family Garden Trail will launch on Wednesday 20 July and run throughout the school summer holidays on all open days and is included in admission. (Under 16s free with a paying adult)
The new trail will have fun facts, discoveries and things to do as you make your way around the traditionally planted Victorian garden. QR codes will bring the different elements to life (a paper version is also available) and there will be traditional Victorian garden games like croquet, skittles, quoits and skipping ropes on the lawn.

Everyone doing the trail will get a packet of wildflower seeds, and the paper version of the trail has been printed on special seed-paper so that can be planted when you get home!
Elizabeth Gaskell’s favourite writing spot overlooks the garden, which is full of roses, peonies, hollyhocks and hardy geraniums – it’s where she wrote some of her most famous novels. Beyond this you can see the Coach House where the Gaskells’ coach and pony would have been kept. Further beyond, there would once have been a paddock for a cow, a pig and poultry.
The trail also highlights facts about sustainability and family-friendly ideas about reducing carbon emissions and ways to encourage wildlife and plant life at home.

The research for this new Family Garden Trail to life has been carried out by Elizabeth Gaskell House’s Under 25s Volunteer Group and it has been supported by Arts Council and Museum Development North West.