The 3rd Duke was a plant collector, and led a century of development at Alnwick – he brought seeds from over the world, and pineapples were raised in hothouses.

Redevelopment of the garden was instigated by Jane Percy, Duchess of Northumberland in 1997, and has been led by Belgian landscape designers Jacques and Peter Wirtz.

It is the most ambitious new garden created in the United Kingdom since the Second World War, with a reported total development cost of £42 million.

[2] A pavilion and visitor centre designed by Sir Michael Hopkins and Buro Happold opened in May 2006, with capacity for 1,000 people.

[4] The mission of the Poison Garden also includes drug education, with featured plantings of cannabis, coca and the opium poppy Papaver somniferum.