The Duke and the Giant Pumpkin at Chatsworth

A giant pumpkin, a giant apple and a giant pear have been installed at Chatsworth from designs by celebrated garden designer Dan Pearson.

Each has a gold-coloured stem to glint in the sunshine, sitting atop a hollow, lattice fruit-shaped structure welded together from mild steel by Godbold Blacksmiths in Whitby. Situated at the entrance to the Kitchen Garden, the giant pumpkin is nearly 5 metres high and 3m wide and the largest of the three topiary installations - the apple and pear are both around 3m high and 2m wide.

Dan Pearson said: “We wanted to create something unexpected, amusing and with real scale and visual impact that would show visitors that they were entering the Kitchen and Cutting Garden.

“It’s a relatively new area at Chatsworth, put in during the 1990’s, and has developed in a rather piecemeal fashion but it has become increasingly important and interesting to visitors and the Duke and Duchess were keen to reflect that.”

Chatsworth has recently begun a series of huge new plantings, including more than 250,000 flowering perennials, shrubs and trees which are set to transform an overlooked, undeveloped 15-acre area at its heart.

Having completed the £32m Masterplan project to restore the house the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire have since been planning a similar revitalising effect on the garden.