Birkheads Secret Garden

NEWS FLASH – ACCESS TO THE GARDENS IS FROM A6076 BETWEEN CAUSEY ARCH & TANFIELD RAILWAY ONLY UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, DUE TO ROAD CLOSURE AT THE OPPOSITE END OF THE ROAD. (CROSSROADS). Sit anywhere in the gardens from now on, to experience the intense sense of contentment of everything around you, the birdsong, scent, humming & buzz of pollinators, the rustling on the ground of small mammals with Newts returned to the ponds to breed. The clean air lichen on shrubs & trees tells you that everything is as it should be in this tiny corner of the world, absorb it all and experience your own sense of Wellbeing. Flowering scented shrubs & trees are all around flowering this week. Flowering hardy plants carpet the ground between them. It’s National Meadows Week Why not visit ours? Created form an opencast mining site 30 years ago- It’s looking wonderful and there are more bats, moths, butterflies & amphibians attracted here every year. You can visit the meadow at any time we’re open- there’s always something interesting to see.

The Gardens, Plant Sales & Coffee Shop are open now, The Summer Menu includes Light lunches, Greek Salads, Toasties, Delicious Cakes, Cream Scones, Milk Shakes, Speciality Teas & Coffees to enjoy indoors under the grape vine or outdoors in the shade of the Loggia or on the terrace in the Topiary Garden after your garden stroll. We’ve also sourced lots of new products for this season in the Gift shop.

The Secret Gardens were created by the present owners Christine & Mike Liddle working to improve the environment left by a heritage of coal mining and intensive farming. The gardens comprise of a series of inspirational gardens displaying a wide variety of hardy plants to provide colour, scent etc. to suit the wide range of diverse conditions found here.

No garden ticket is necessary to visit the coffee shop, gift shop or nursery sales area so call in for coffee and browse our range of hardy garden plants grown 650 ft above sea level. Sorry, no dogs allowed in our open plan coffee shop, but plenty of outdoor seating for you and your pet with orders brought to your table.

Groups welcome – please read our ‘Groups’ page if you are more than 16 members. The 3 acre gardens are situated in rural Gateshead between Beamish Open Air Museum & the Tanfield Steam Railway.