Celebrating International Nurses Day in Bloom at Littlethorpe Manor

From the seed of an idea came a very memorable day!

An invitation to a beautiful garden, International Nurses Day, a wellbeing theme, Queen’s Nurses… all the elements to plan a garden visit for QNs to celebrate Nurses Day and promote nurses’ wellbeing through nature and connecting with each other.

This year, we were very kindly invited by Mrs Christin Thackray, through the National Garden Scheme, to visit her celebrated garden at Littlethorpe Manor, just outside Ripon in North Yorkshire. It was an excellent opportunity and the QICN worked with them to fix the date as Nurses Day and make the arrangements.

For me, Ripon and the surrounding area is a special place, living close by and professionally too. This is the area where I trained as a Registered Nurse, and where I was working as a School Nurse when I was awarded the Queen’s Nurse title in 2017.

Nurses Day

When the morning of 12 May dawned it was overcast and chilly, and I felt a bit sad the glorious sunshine that Yorkshire had basked in over the weekend had disappeared. However, that soon changed and by the time I had made the short drive to Littlethorpe, the skies were a clear, midsummer blue.

Arriving through the gates of Littlethorpe Manor was exciting: four acres of formal gardens and seven acres of parkland awaited. I had visited the garden in 2023 with my daughter and knew the beauty that lay within the grounds. Today, thirty-five Queen’s Nurses were coming to experience the magnificent gardens themselves. I wondered if they would share the same feelings as I had.

We were warmly welcomed to the garden by the owner Christin Thackray, who herself had been a nurse and acknowledged the expertise and dedication of community nurses, and who had raised the flag on the manor in our honour! Her passion and love for the garden shone through, and the importance of recognising and celebrating her family connections with medicine and nursing.

A Tree of Life

Head Gardener Eddie Harland led us on a tour of the garden; informative and humorous, he captivated us for an hour and a half. We began in the Walled Garden with a theme of the four seasons and each corner was the home to a unique statue and a Norwegian World Tree proudly centred in the middle of the garden – a symbolic Tree of Life.  The tour continued to the stunning Sunken Garden parterre, based on a White Rose of York design. Everywhere there was something, something to see, smell or touch, a real feast for the senses. And a beautiful spot for the group photo by the Yorkshire Post!

We were then treated to the Fountain Lawn and met the resident robot lawn mower, named Hildegarde. The water of the fountain danced and glistened in the glorious sunshine. We continued to the Physic Garden, formerly a tennis court, now a breath-taking garden commemorating the medical background of the Thackray family. The family had begun Thackray’s in Leeds – manufacturers of surgical instruments and pioneers of hip arthroplasty. This pioneering work was captured in a sculpture of hip arthroplasty and a water feature representing the ball and socket joint. The nurses were in awe of this garden with lots of wows and photo opportunities. The history of the family is beautifully depicted through the materials used and plants chosen.

Gardens and Health

Our final leg of the tour was through the green and lush open parkland to the pond. This area was peaceful, and we walked single file over narrow bridges admiring the trees and plants. The view back up to the Manor was picturesque, in fact ‘postcard perfect’.

We headed back to our starting point and if there was to be a grand finale this was it, the Wisteria Pergola. Metres and metres of flowing, fairylike flowers in full bloom adorned the pergola and as we walked through you felt immersed in their beauty. It was stunning! The day ended with a lunch generously provided by Christin and a chance for the Queen’s Nurses to connect and network. The room was full of smiles and laughter but equally stories of how challenging working in healthcare is right now and the importance of self-care.

On reflection the day was a day of connections and how important they are: connecting with nature and natural beauty, connecting with fellow Queen’s Nurses, connecting with colleagues past and present, but most poignantly reconnecting where my nursing career had begun and where my love of working in the community was founded.

Thank you

Thank you to Christin Thackray, to Eddie Harland and his team, to NGS Head Office and to the Yorkshire NGS County volunteers for this wonderful, unforgettable experience.

Fiona Rogers QN

Notes

• If you would like to visit Littlethorpe Manor, it is open for the National Garden Scheme on Sunday 6^th July 2025. Full information is here.
• You can also read a blog about the day on the National Garden Scheme’s website here, which includes a video interview with the QICN’s Incoming Chief Executive, Steph Lawrence MBE.
• The Queen’s Nurses’ visit was featured on the front page of the Yorkshire Post on 13 May 2025.
• To read more about the inspiration behind the Physic Garden, click here.

Cover photo courtesy of The National Garden Scheme.