That's what the biggest and brashest of England's counties naturally expects; (actually – interesting fact - historic Yorkshire also contains England's second-biggest county: the West Riding on its own beats Devon, Lincolnshire and other such rivals). But the organisers made the mistake of not enlisting the magical powers of the Mighty Sisters until now.
In 2010, the garden was themed on rhubarb and custard, picking up the lore and legend of the
'rhubarb-growing triangle' between Wakefield, Pontefract and Leeds. Last year, a rather architectural construction of drystone walls and the like drew on Yorkshire Artists, with references to
David Hockney,
Barbara Hepworth and
Henry Moore.
Not to be outdone. Charlotte Bronte. Photograph: Hulton Getty
But at last, this year, Charlotte, Emily and Bronte appeared in a dream to Gary Verity, the chief executive of
Welcome to Yorkshire which organises the garden, and said: "Daft ha'porth. It's us you need."
So it has proved. The massive metropolitan cliché mill grinds out unswerving descriptions of the sisters and their moors as wuthering and howling, but we who live here know better. Charlotte herself wrote of Emily after her death and how:
There is not a knoll of heather, not a branch of fern, not a young bilberry leaf, not a fluttering lark or linnet, but reminds me of her
And Emily carolled in one of her perhaps less original poems:
May flowers are opening
And leaves unfolding free
There are bees in every blossom
And birds in every tree.
Anyway, Verity arose and his staff carried out the ghostly instructions, recreating the 'Bronte bridge' which crosses the Bronte beck by the Bronte waterfalls on the way to
Top Withens (aka Wuthering Heights) above the sisters' home village of Haworth. They also crammed in a goodly stock of plants, making the composition more garden than artificial construction. Although the Brontes were not actually very good gardeners themselves, as the
Guardian Northerner recently described, they would surely have approved.
Verity says:
The garden has had a non-stop stream of admirers since The
Chelsea Flower Show opened but this was the ultimate goal, taking gold back to Yorkshire. This is the third time we've entered and we're delighted to be going home with a gold medal for the first time. We hope to convert thousands of well-wishers into tourists over the course of the week.
Tracy Foster, the
garden's designer from Leeds, worked closely with the
Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth throughout the project, describes how the garden tried to source materials from nearby, including boulders from Dove Stones moor:
The stone is beautiful. We have deliberately not cleaned it so it has aged naturally and it is of the period when the girls would have been walking around the Yorkshire Moors and writing their novels. The stone still has its original lichens and mosses attached which look just perfect in the garden and really give a sense of the beauty and bleakness that epitomise the wonderful moorland landscape.
She is properly over the moon, deservedly:
My first Chelsea and I get gold, it doesn't get much better than this! I'm so proud of what we have achieved. I hope the high profile medal inspires more people to come to Yorkshire to see for themselves the landscape that brought gold to the garden.
Yorkshire garden wins Chelsea gold. Gary Verity and Tracy Foster get their gold from Nicky Chapman. Photograph: Welcome to Yorkshire
Always good at linking things, Welcome to Yorkshire has just unveiled a gardens campaign which highlights
some of the best gardens to visit in Yorkshire. You can also see
three films here which the
Guardian Northernerteam made last year of the progress of the Art of Yorkshire entry.
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