Visit to East Ruston Old Vicarage Garden

One of our favourite gardens in the world

In late summer we paid our annual (sometimes more) visit to East Ruston Old Vicarage Garden. We’ve been visiting every year for at least ten years according to my photo collection, but I think it’s probably more like twenty (I’ve far too many photos to share, so I really urge you to visit yourself). We’ve seen the garden develop significantly in the time we’ve been visiting, but not as dramatically as the owners and gardeners Graham Robeson and Alan Gray who bought the dilapidated old house in 1973 when it had almost no garden. Over a period of more than 50 years they have grown something absolutely magnificent, and vast at over 32 acres.

There are long avenues of trees, sometimes culminating in an astonishing view – Happisburgh Lighthouse or the neighbouring church. Japanese gardeners call this “borrowed landscape”. There are hugely intricate borders of seasonal flowers too, and delightful topiary. There are greenhouses, sculpture, water features, exotic animals, and a wonderful arid desert wash landscape of gravel, agave, cacti and yuccas.

Every visit is an inspiration

The garden has inspired our own North Cottage Cromer garden in several ways. Recently I clipped the straggling holly tree into cloud layers in homage to East Ruston Old Vicarage. Ours has a way to go yet, but it’s on the way to behaving obediently. Our display of succulents, so many guests admire, is inspired by an absolute treat of varied terracotta pots on display at East Ruston, home to a dazzling array of rare aeoniums, cacti, and succulents. Just this small area, a tiny part of an enormous achievement, is one of the highlights for me. That’s one of the great features of Graham Robeson and Alan Gray’s garden, there is something for everyone – including a tea room and plant sales area. Even the plant sales area has a special feature – you can buy beautiful vintage garden tools each described and priced (modestly) with a brown paper luggage tag, something I’ve been unable to resist on several visits.

One of the buildings tells the story of the garden’s development with fabulous photographs. From muddy fields, to an explosion of green and colour over 50 plus years. The photos show many seasons of dreaming and scheming, building and planting, not for short term wins but long term gains. It really is a triumph.

A lot closer to home than Japan’s show-stoppers

I began this article with a bold claim. ‘One of our favourite gardens in the world.’ It’s absolutely true. We love gardening, we’ve been to Japan five times, and the gardens have often driven our self-planned itineraries. At first we were trying to see the three Great Gardens (Kenroku-en, Kairaku-en, and Koraku-en) then some of the second tier (Ritsurin Garden and the Adachi Museum) then we revisited our favourites. Japan is a long way to travel to get your gardening inspiration, East Ruston Old Vicarage is conveniently close at hand, but no less inspiring. It is bursting with ideas and show-stoppers. We really look forward to seeing how it develops each year.

According to a recent article, East Ruston Old Vicarage has over 30,000 visitors each year. At this year’s admission price of £14.50 that’s a chunky income – but rest assured you can absolutely see where all the money goes. The bills for the endless building projects, glass houses, plants, materials and equipment must be eye-watering. I’m always happy to contribute my ticket price to this exhilarating show and enthusiastically recommend our guests visit the gardens too.

So it is with great sadness that I learned this week from the gardens’ facebook page, that Graham Robeson (July 1946 – October 2025) has died aged 79. He’ll always be remembered by many for his showy car park marshalling – where, complete with naval cap deployed as a parking wand, he would wave visitor’s cars into the allotted spaces beneath the groves of trees. He was almost always silent as he did this. As soon as your car was in its space he was on to the next. Sometimes I saw him gardening in the arid area of agaves and yuccas, and would exchange a few words with him, but mostly I felt he was happiest engaged with the garden rather than the visitors. This is no criticism. During my career as a TV producer I worked with Alan Titchmarsh a few times on Ground Force, and I always felt he was more focussed on building a great garden for the recipient than addressing the camera and the viewers at home. These qualities I think separate out the great gardeners.

A ‘must see’ for gardeners visiting North Norfolk

East Ruston Old Vicarage Garden is open March to October every year. I think the middle months are the finest when the plants put on their very best show, but there is no bad time to visit. As noted your admission money is put to fine use. In 2023 Graham and Alan gifted the garden to a charity so that it will continue to give great joy long after they have both gone. Our thoughts are with Alan at this time, what a truly amazing thing they have achieved together.

Links

East Ruston Old Vicarage – how to get there, what to see and admission details

In September 2024 BBC Gardener’s World featured East Ruston’s Old Vicarage Garden. At the time of writing (October 2025) it’s not available on iplayer, but can be found on Youtube.

Read about another of our garden visits – Houghton Hall

We also highly recommend and enjoy the walled garden at National Trust Felbrigg Hall, which is almost on the doorstep of North Cottage Cromer. Why not book a stay and enjoy a gardening tour? It’s easier to reach than Japan!