Title: Senior Gardener
Location: Kenwood House, Hampstead, London, NW3 7JR
Salary: From £28,074 per annum / 36 hours / Permanent
Job type: Permanent
Ref: 15661

Would you like to use your passion and creativity to nurture one of the country's most prestigious gardens and inspire visitors from across the world? With 14 main garden sites and dedicated garden teams, we are the organisation that looks after England's most important buildings and monuments, making sure our country's amazing history is available for everyone to enjoy. From world-famous prehistoric sites to grand medieval castles, Roman forts to a Cold War bunker, we bring the history of England to life.

We are looking for a Senior Gardener to join our team at Kenwood. Kenwood is set on 112 acres of wonderful green parkland on Hampstead Heath. It's listed designed landscape was the vision of Humphrey Repton in the 1790s. Some features include a pasture ground which neighbours the SSSI ancient woodland, ponds and open meadows. Smaller themed garden areas entice our many visitors to walk around the estate to enjoy shows of rhododendrons, woodland plantings, an old kitchen garden now planted with mixed herbaceous borders, and ornamental plantings around the cafe terrace designed by Arabella Lennox-Boyd. We also have a compost area on site to recycle as much garden waste as possible. Kenwood is a real oasis in busy London!

Benefits include:

- Comprehensive training and CPD
- The opportunity to progress your career
- Opportunities to go to some of our great live music or history events
- Free access to all English Heritage sites for you, and up to 6 friends / family members
- 25% discount in our shops and cafes
- Corporate subscription / memberships to gardening organisations
- Enhanced maternity/paternity/Shared Parental leave
- 25 days' holiday plus Bank Holidays pro rata rising to 28 days after 3 years
- Options to buy additional leave
- Matched pension contributions up to a maximum of 10%

You'll enhance our visitors’ day out - from sharing your gardening knowledge, to ensuring their health and safety. Being able to ensure smooth running of weekly job rotas and input into the seasonal work plans are also a must for this busy and engaging role.

Our Senior Gardener will work closely with our Head Gardener and supervises the daily tasks of 2 Gardeners and volunteers. You will play a vital role in ensuring that all work carried out in our gardens by our fantastic team is to the highest of standards. You will find imaginative ways of bringing to life the stories that our gardens tell, helping visitors of all ages to make new discoveries.

You will be experienced with hedge trimmers, strimmers, tractor driving, use of Gators and basic maintenance of these items of garden machinery. It's essential you have great skills in pruning woody species, have a high-quality of garden experience ideally including a proven track record in ornamental gardens & herbaceous border care and interest in meadow conservation. Ideally, you’ll be experienced with use of a chainsaw. Stepping away from the ornamental areas at Kenwood, your regular tasks will also require your leadership skills in operating volunteer sessions to manage invasive species by hand or with hand machinery across the site, protecting ancient and veteran trees and maintaining the SSSI woods and sphagnum bog - home to rare species. Excellent plant knowledge and horticultural skills are essential.

Experience of the running of weekly job rotas and input into the seasonal work plans are also a must for this busy and engaging role.

Currently, this role requires you to fulfil the equivalent of at least one day a week of office work, so use of Excel, Microsoft Outlook and Word are essential.

Find out more about us and what we do on our website, meet some of our People and hear about why they enjoy working with us.

Everyone is welcome at English Heritage. We are always looking for people who reflect the diversity of the country today, to help us make it more relevant to the diversity of the people, communities and places we serve. From remote sites to inner city monuments, from regional teams to our Head Office, the diversity of our teams is critical to making sure our heritage is inclusive, exciting and accessible. We continually look for new ways to promote the past in a way that is inclusive to all and that celebrates the cultural diversity of England's heritage. By joining us, you will be part of a charity that is already on an exciting journey to tell everyone's story with an inclusive working atmosphere where everyone from all backgrounds, religions and with different needs will be supported. To support this work, we have a number of EDI networks that you can join as either a member or ally. These networks include Ethnic Diversity, Faith & Belief, Social Equity, LGBTQ+, Neurodivergence, Age, Disability and Gender Specific Issues.

We would be delighted to hear from you, if you would like to talk to us about this role before you apply, e.g. regarding workplace adjustments, working patterns, please contact Crissy Mulrain, Head Gardener. No agencies please.

In person interviews will commence the week of October 28, 2024 at Kenwood, NW3 7JR.

Closing date: 16/10/2024 23:59:59

So, if you’d like to join us as a Senior Gardener, please apply via the button shown.

Other organisations may call this role Head Gardener, Groundskeeper, Grounds Person, Horticultural Technician, Horticulture Operative, or Horticulturalist.