This is the garden created by The Honourable Robert James and Lady Serena James at Richmond in North Yorkshire. Bobbie James was an avid plant collector and member of The Garden Society, an exclusive group of Fellows of The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). He was in the same social circle as Lawrence Johnson, of Hidcote fame, who was a fellow member of The Garden Society, Fellow of the RHS and both men sponsored some of the same plant hunting expeditions. Bobbie James, as he was known, moved to St. Nicholas in 1905 with his first wife Lady Evelyn, two years prior to Johnson moving to Hidcote and it seems most likely that both men were aware of the developments of the others’ gardens.

Following Lady Evelyn James death in 1922 Bobbie married the much younger Lady Serena Lumley who was a keen gardener in her own right and she continued to care for the gardens after her husband’s death in 1960 until her own in 2000. After her death, the property remained in private hands and is presently open to the public a few days each year.

Bobbie James was very much a plantsman and his garden reflected this, a factor which caused his widow a great deal of problems and regret as she was unable to find suitable staff to maintain a garden full of rare plants. Sadly, when a garden is neglected it is the planting which tends to suffer the most and this has been a long-term problem for this garden. About 30 years ago Lady Serena showed me around the garden and back then she was struggling to maintain the garden. This shows; many of the paths and steps require maintenance and much of the planting is missing, repetitive or of poor quality. Some of the original planting does survive, such as Rosa ‘Bobbie James’ which rambles over the front of the house and Lady Serena was very proud, but little is made of it.

There is though still a lot of the structure of the garden, particularly the walls and hedges which divide the garden into separate areas. This was a popular design style at the time the garden was being created and allows the garden to have a number of separately themed areas. These allow them to show off different types of garden and plants but Bobbie James was unable to draw the surrounding countryside into the garden layout.

St. Nicholas has a long history and a place in the history of plants and gardens but needs a lot more work before it’s ready to be open to the public. The potential is clearly there and with time and money it could be a great garden, but it’s future is unclear as it was placed on the market again in May 2017.