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Since 2005 the Thornbridge Brewery has been brewing award winning ales, the most successful being Jaipur, their India Pale Ale (IPA) which has won plenty of awards and rave reviews. The brewery started life in derelict buildings in the grounds of Thornbridge Hall, a stately home just outside Ashford-in-the-Water in Derbyshire. The brewery's success means that it is moving to larger premises in nearby Bakewell. Today, for the first time, the gardens of the Hall were open as part of the National Gardens Scheme.
I first went to Thornbridge Hall over twenty years ago to attend a short course on Time Management. Amazingly I still remember some of the things we were taught, but I was also struck by the location. A wonderful old building surrounded by garden and parkland in the Peak District. Sounds perfect! Since then I had never had the opportunity to revisit but today joined a large number of visitors eager to see the gardens.
Thornbridge Hall's origins go back to the 12th century and was the family seat of the Longsdon family until the late eighteenth century. From then until the early 1920s the Hall had several different owners and underwent several enlargements and changes. In 1945 it was taken on by Sheffield
City Council as a training and conference centre until it reverted to private ownership in 1997. In 2002 it was bought by the present owners, Emma Harrison and her husband Jim. Emma Harrison is a hugely successful businesswoman and the driving force behind the training organisation A4E that she established some twenty years ago. She is also the founder of the charitable Foundation for Social Improvement (FSI). So now Thornbridge Hall is under her stewardship and once again a family home but continues as a conference centre and wedding venue.
The present gardens were designed at the end of the 19th century under the ownership of George Marples, a Sheffield businessman, by Simeon Marshall of York. Although much has changed and developed since then, current plans are to re-establish the vegetable garden and greenhouses - indeed, it is very clear that a huge amount of effort and investment has already been made in the gardens. In particular the vegetable garden, although not yet completed, is already highly productive and a visual feast (and no doubt a culinary one too!)
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