Hardwick Hall’s longest-serving gardener, Mr Dennis Hobden, has retired after 38 years at the National Trust property.

Mr Hobden, pictured with his RHS long service medal presented by colleagues, has been a professional gardener for 51 years. He only worked in three gardens.

He worked on all the major changes in the garden, including two new looks for the Herb Garden in 1993 and 2004.

Outdoors manager Mr Ian Hunt said “Dennis is an excellent propagator and grower of plants and when I arrived at Hardwick in 1993 he managed all of the glasshouses and took all of the cuttings for the garden and for plant sales.

“His enormous strength and work rate have at times kept the property open almost single-handed when heavy snow fell or the garden suffered storm damage.”

Colleagues also presented him with a new bike to replace the one he travelled to work on daily, and a hand-turned wooden plate made a volunteer from a Hardwick walnut tree branch, which was pruned a few years ago and is one of the oldest plants in the Hardwick garden.