I visited the gardens where more than 100 people faint every year | UK | Travel
A guide at The Poison Garden gate at Alnwick Garden. (Image: Getty)
In one of my many late-night TikTok doom-scrolling sessions, I stumbled across a garden you can visit that holds some of the world’s deadliest plants. Alnwick Gardens is a contemporary garden that opened to the public 20 years ago. It boasts a magnificent water cascade, the world’s largest cherry orchard, and a poison garden kept under lock and key that can only be entered with a guide.
So, packing up my family for an autumnal weekend getaway, we set off to Northumberland on a Friday evening after work and school. Driving across the country from our home in Wirral, it took us four hours to arrive at the Ashington Premier Inn just south of Alnwick and north of Newcastle. It is situated lakeside of the Queen Elizabeth II Country Park, a park created on the site of the old Woodhorn colliery, and it only cost me £116 for a family of four for two nights, a bargain.
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The beautiful water feature at Alnwick Gardens (Image: Rebecca Koncienzcy)
On Saturday morning, we went straight out to visit the garden, where more than 100 people faint every year. Not before a quick stop at Greggs for breakfast; we were in the North East, so it seemed rude not to.
Although the friendly staff did have trouble understanding my Merseyside husband when he asked for a sausage barm before it clicked, and in a warm, Georgie accent, he said: “Oh, you mean a roll.” Proving the age-old regional debate of “bap, barm, roll and batch” is still alive and well.
Even the drive to Alnwick Gardens was surrounded by stunning trees turning red and golden orange in the soft autumn sun, and upon entering, you are immediately greeted by the stunning cascading water fountain.
But it was straight to the poison garden for us, situated to the left of the fountain. Behind a heavy black gate and carefully guarded, you have to wait for the next tour, which wasn’t long, and they have strict rules—no pickin’ and no lickin’.
Poison Gardens at Alnwick in Northumberland (Image: Rebecca Koncienzcy)
They are not messing about here; some of the plants inside are so deadly to humans that they are caged. Your guide will stop at interesting, fairly normal-looking plants, flowers, trees and shrubs before telling you the many different ways they will make you gravely ill or truly disturbing ways you will die if you accidentally ingest them.
These stories, coupled with being in the general vicinity of these lethal leaves, lead to many visitors fainting during tours; in fact, they keep a count near the black gate, and it is already over 100 this year so far.
The guides are wonderful, knowledgeable, and serious about the dangers, but they also make it funny and entertaining. The most deadly plant we were guided to was the castor oil plant, which has a deep purple-red bulbous flower with vicious-looking spikes on the end of a tall woody stem. It is behind a barred cage for our safety.
Harvest the three seeds inside the ominous flower, and a good chemist could prepare you for anywhere between 30 and 300 doses of deadly ricin, for which there is no antidote.
The castor oil flower behind a cage as its seeds are some of the deadliest in the world (Image: Rebecca Koncienzcy)
No two tours are the same, so it is worth going back to a different guide and at different times of the year when other wicked flowers are in bloom.
It was hard to top our poison garden tour, but the rest of the gardens are beautiful, perfect for a stroll and a picnic—if you can stomach it after learning how the Gympie-Gympie plant can lead people to take their own lives.
There is a cafe and gift shop at Alnwick Gardens, and you can add a trip to Lilidorei, situated in the grounds. This is a huge outdoor play area for children, and my five-year-old spent more than two hours adventuring in the fairytale-style turrets, bridges and slides
The play area was clean and safe, and staff were on hand to ensure there were no accidents on the slides. It really was a perfect way to spend a beautiful autumnal day, and with half term around the corner, I recommend this as a special day out with the kids that you will remember forever. They will bug you just as much to go back.
Rebecca’s children in one of the turrets of Lilidorei (Image: Rebecca Koncienzcy)
Alnwick Gardens and Lilidorei are in Alnwick, Northumberland and can be found with the postcode NE66 1FJ.
If you just want entry to the gardens, four kids go free with a paying adult ticket price of £18.95. Lilidorei tickets include garden access and are £21.45 per adult and £17.60 per child ages three to 16, with under threes free. Parking was £3.50 the day we went.
