A stem vase in the shape of a pig, a Victorian family photograph album adorned with hand-painted flowers, a pair of candelabras encrusted with ceramic flowers, and a Japanese-style fan with pink blossoms are just a few of the never before seen treasures on display in a new exhibition at Brodsworth Hall in South Yorkshire. Charting the green-fingered passions of country house owner Sylvia Grant-Dalton, A Season of Flowers reveals a myriad of riches, from a reimagined flower preparation room, countless items of floral paraphernalia and oral histories to large-scale floral displays and poignant historic photographs. The exhibition opens from tomorrow (28 March) and will run until 1 November 2026.

“It’s blocked again,” echoes the recording of Les Trott, Brodsworth Hall’s foreman from 1974-2020, as he tells an anecdote involving Sylvia Grant-Dalton, a large marble sink and a rather unusual method for disposing of flower stalks. This is a story former handyman Wallace Breedon (employed 1920s-1950s) must have also known too well, spending every Saturday morning unblocking the pipes. The sink, a nearby toilet, no plumbing was safe from Sylvia when she began a fit of flower arranging, such was her love for plants and the gardens at Brodsworth.

When Charles Grant-Dalton inherited Brodsworth Hall in 1931 the house and estate were badly in need of investment, but the interwar years, economic depression and death duties took their toll on family finances. Moving into the Victorian house with his wife, Sylvia, and their 12-year-old daughter, Pamela, they made the house habitable, managing with ever fewer servants and by closing some rooms and brightening others with a lick of plain paint. But Sylvia, less interested in the hall’s interiors, was more excited at the prospect of the fifteen acres of gardens to tend to.

Eleanor Matthews, Curator at Brodsworth Hall, said:

“Sylvia loved flowers, particularly roses, and from a young age was often photographed gathering, arranging, or simply enjoying being amongst them. She shared this love with friends and family who often found her pottering in the garden, cutting and pruning. In forming A Season of Flowers, while we’ve discovered much about Sylvia’s gardening habits, we’ve also learnt more about Brodsworth Hall and how this love of flowers influenced the running of the house. In fact, recent research has revealed that a room previously known as a woodworking room (the lathe room) also existed as Sylvia’s personal flower preparation room, used for potting, flower arranging and bringing in plants from the gardens to display inside the house. We’re excited to have recreated this room for the first time as part of the exhibition.”

Now, A Season of Flowers reveals a glimpse behind the curtain into the inner lives of the family and staff who lived and worked at Brodsworth Hall through the lens of the gardens. A huge, sumptuous tablescape featuring an array of faux flowers, butterflies and birds’ nests, designed and constructed by floristry students at Doncaster College (inspired by a Dutch painting in the collection – a copy of Flowers in a Terracotta Vase with Fruit and a Bird's Nest by Jan van Huysum), will command the dining room, paying homage to Sylvia’s favourite painting. Elsewhere, historic photographs of the hall’s gardeners will be displayed side-by-side with recreated photographs of the present-day garden team and volunteers, taken by Dearne Valley Camera Club. The garden team will also create a fortnightly fresh floral arrangement in the entrance hall using flowers from Brodsworth’s own gardens.

A soundscape in the newly displayed flower preparation room will bring the peaceful nature sounds of Brodsworth’s gardens into the house as the room is restored to its former glory. Carefully collected oral histories from historic members of staff and family can be heard in the house and gardens as they reflect on their time at Brodsworth Hall. One such recording, as told by Pamela Williams (née Grant-Dalton – Sylvia’s daughter), recalls a special floor for dancing being laid in the drawing room for a hunt ball which was disastrously too small, leaving unsightly gaps around the edges of the room. It was Head Gardener, Mr Larner, to the rescue as he filled all the gaps with red and yellow crocuses in moss – “it looked magical”, Pamela recalls. A family trail will also lead children through the house and into the gardens, encouraging them to get in touch with nature.

A few of the family treasures on display* for the first time include:

• A recently conserved, Victorian gilt goat-footed jardinière, originally used to display flowers (which will be filled with realistic orchids and ferns). The jardinière has been cleaned, its timber joints consolidated, horns, hooves and foliage repaired and gilding reinstated.
• A recently conserved, late Victorian glass beadwork and embroidered, floral needlepoint cushion. Conservation work has revealed that the two sides of the cushion were made separately, never intending to be together as one piece, possibly indicating its status as a homemade object by the family
• Black leather gilt bound photograph album (c1870-1880), containing portraits of the Thellusson family and their contemporaries, with each page illuminated by a different watercolour illustration of flowers – thought to be the work of Aline Thellusson, a gifted amateur artist
• A pair of German porcelain candelabras (nineteenth century) with figurative and floral design, incorporating a mother and child around the stem, a flower encrusted base and flower decorated arms and four candle holders (later electrified)
• A matching set of ceramic brooch and pair of earrings in the form of a flower from a Paris jeweller’s (Bijouterie Chagnet, 214 Rue de Rivoli, Paris), belonging to Pamela Williams (née Grant-Dalton)
• An oval gold, diamond and amethyst locket with enamelled floral decoration, belonging to Sylvia Grant-Dalton. The locket contains a tiny photograph of her husband Charles that dates from six years before they were married in 1916. Sylvia and Charles were married for over 35 years and Sylvia continued to live in the hall for over 30 years after Charles’s death. On one side is of the locket is a pansy, on the other forget-me-not
• Painting – The Garden Room, David Curtis (1979). Oil on canvas painting of the lathe room, painted in situ during a Doncaster Art Club meet at the hall. Conversations with the artist revealed new insights and nuances into the use of the room in the latter part of Sylvia Grant-Dalton’s tenure.
• A fan advertising the London & North Eastern Railway, probably made in Japan (1925). The fan, a single paper leaf mounted a l’Anglaise, is decorated with a Japanese style design in pink of flowers on a buff paper ground, with wooden sticks painted purple
• A collection of vases used to hold fresh floral arrangements, including one in the shape of a pig
• Floral decorated cushion, parasol, doilies and apron
• Collection of 1940s-70s gardening books, catalogues and magazines (Gardeners Chronicle, Country Life’s Gardening Illustrated, among others) and a David Austin Handbook of Roses – belonging to Sylvia
• Ceramic pomander for potpourri, sitting in a small beaker
• Flower greeting cards and postcards, likely sent to Sylvia by members of the family
• Pamela Williams’ nature exercise book

*Some of these objects will be displayed on rotation throughout the year

A Season of Flowers opens at Brodsworth Hall on Saturday 28 March. Admission is included in house entry.

Find more information about Brodsworth Hall and plan your visit here.