Inside Gardeners’ World star’s £700,000 home with | UK News

When the previous home of gardening broadcaster Geoffrey Smith went on the market in 2011 for over £700,000, the household provided a glimpse into Mount Pleasant, a stone-built four-bedroom home in High Birstwith, close to Harrogate – with 5 acres of grounds created and tended by the late Gardeners’ Question Time panellist.

Smith, who died in 2009 aged 80, was one of the best-known gardening voices of his technology. He introduced a quantity of BBC sequence including Mr Smith’s Vegetable Garden and Geoffrey Smith’s World of Flowers, and joined the long-running Gardeners’ Question Time panel in 1983.

Born in Swaledale in 1928, the son of a head gardener, Smith educated at Askham Bryan College of Agriculture and Horticulture before changing into superintendent at Harlow Carr in Harrogate at the age of 26. He stayed there until his late 40s, serving to to set up it as one of the nation’s main gardens.

It was after leaving Harlow Carr that Smith and his spouse Marjorie purchased Mount Pleasant. According to his daughter Caroline, the choice was made on the strength of the land and the south-facing view relatively than the home itself. “He didn’t even look at the house,” she said. “He looked at the land and the view and said: ‘We’ll have it’.”

At the time the plot contained only a handful of trees. Over the next three a long time Smith developed it into a sequence of gardens and areas that often mirrored the tasks he was working on for tv. Vegetable plots appeared in different corners of the grounds, and where there was once a purpose-built pond, there may be now a rock garden planted with alpines.

“He spent thousands of pounds on soil and the quality is amazing. It’s so good you could eat it and you could grow anything in it,” said Caroline, who maintained the property after her father’s death. She added: “He was always planting for the next generation. He planted a lot of oak trees. The garden matured alongside its creator and he made it easier to maintain as he got older.”

Smith’s popularity for laborious work prolonged to his home life. Even in later years he continued planting, digging and chopping trees around Mount Pleasant. He labored seven days a week and hardly ever took holidays, preferring instead to spend his time open air. Caroline recalled how he would patrol the grounds at evening with their German shepherd and a shotgun after thieves started stealing lead plant labels.

The home itself offers 4 bedrooms, while the 5 acres of south-facing gardens offer a combination of lawns, rock gardens and mature planting. A summer season home was Smith’s favorite retreat, where he would sit with a cup of tea and look across the panorama.

It was also at Mount Pleasant that he was first noticed by a BBC producer, main to his transfer into broadcasting. While pruning a tree in the garden, he was approached to seem on tv alongside Percy Thrower – an encounter that led to a sequence of programmes that established him as one of Britain’s most recognisable gardening consultants.

Smith died in February 2009, leaving behind his spouse, son and daughter. When Mount Pleasant went on sale in 2011, his household said they hoped another person would continue to take pleasure in the home and gardens.

Caroline said: “My father was very proud of it but now it’s time for someone else to enjoy this beautiful spot.”