Touring Cheshire’s Bridgemere Show Gardens With Eight RHS Award Winners

Nestled at the heart of Cheshire, Bridgemere Show Gardens is composed of 15 individual garden rooms and has existed as a public garden since the 1980s.

Eight of the gardens at Bridgemere are, in fact, recreations of Gold or Silver Gilt-winning show gardens that were displayed at RHS Tatton Park, Chelsea and Hampton Court Flower Shows.

I spoke with the Head Gardener, Bernard Porter, to discuss the 44 years he has spent working at Bridgemere, his favourite garden rooms, and the impact the gardens have on visitors.

Watch the full garden tour with Bernard here:

Bernard’s 44 Year Tenure

“I’ve actually worked at Bridgemere for 44 years,” Bernard begins.

“After I had spent 29 years on production, the previous owner, Mr Ravenscroft, asked me if I’d come and sort the garden out and I’ve been in here ever since. It’s a pleasure to work here.

“Originally the garden used to just be a display in the middle of where the garden centre is now.

“In the early 1980s, Mr Ravenscroft decided to move up here and a couple of years later, we started doing Chelsea Flower Shows.

“He planned to bring every garden we did back and reinstate it here so the public could come and see it.”

Exploring The RHS Show Gardens

“Everybody makes a beeline for the Cottage as soon as they get to the garden,” explains Bernard.

“It was the RHS garden we won the most awards with. We won a gold medal, best in show, and an award for plant excellence. This garden was the first time I worked at Chelsea, so it’s a bit of a special garden to me.

“My favourite plant in here is the lilac that’s at the edge of the space. Lilacs have really gone out of fashion, but every garden should have a lilac in it somewhere because they smell beautiful.”

“The Victorian garden was originally built by Mr Ravenscroft for Chelsea but he couldn’t get the ground space to do it as it is here,” he continues.

“We started gardening down this end of the garden back in 1990 and it features a huge display of around 8,000-10,000 tulips throughout the spring.

“As soon as, as soon as the tulips are over, we replace all of those with lots of varieties of dahlias.”

“There’s a lot of people love the Down Memory Lane garden,” he says.

“They’ll go sit in there for hours and it can be quite emotional. It was designed by someone that works for Blue Diamond in memory of her dad who had Alzheimer’s, so it provokes a lot of memories for people.

“It looks more like a little allotment garden, than a show garden, but it won a Silver Gilt medal at Hampton Court, which was quite an achievement.”

When Best To Visit Bridgemere

“I think you can walk around the garden at any time of the year, whether it be December or July, and always find something in flower,” shares Bernard.

“If somebody walks in and looks up and through the gate, they’ll see that I’ve got the most perfect office in the world.

“Once you become a gardener, you just become obsessed with gardening. Plants become more important than people.”

To find out more about Bridgemere Show Gardens and visit for yourself, head over to their website.