"A VISIONARY gardener" who restored the hidden treasure of John Ruskin's garden has died, aged 54.

Sally Beamish was head gardener and estate manager at the Victorian art critic's former home, overlooking Coniston Water.

Friends and colleagues have paid warm tributes to her work, which they said "revealed the extent of John Ruskin’s contribution to both the practice and understanding of our relationship to nature".

When Sally arrived at Brantwood three decades ago, having worked for Cumbria County Council and at the Royal Horticultural Society gardens at Wisley, the 250 acres had been neglected for more than 60 years. The resulting wilderness was "certainly ripe for rescue".

She noted: "One of my early memories at Brantwood is of walking through the woods and thinking that this ancient and lovely estate is all mine, to work with and work upon. It was a very exciting prospect.”

Sally enlisted the help of scholars to mine extensive photographic and pictorial Ruskin archives of the Victorian art critic's material, and she read long-neglected books by Ruskin on botany, land management and natural history. Above all, Sally looked closely at the evidence of the land itself.

With trademark "determination and infectious enthusiasm", she motivated a young team to begin the huge task of reclaiming historic features, restoring Ruskin’s landscaping and his cousin Joan Severn’s gardens, and returning woodlands and grazing to healthy management - described as "problem solving on an epic scale".

Located on a steep fellside, the estate's soil is thin and rocky. Although a West Country girl who grew up in Plymouth, Sally "quickly became a native Cumbrian" and effortlessly absorbed local wisdom on the land. Her respect for traditions deepened over the years and Brantwood became "an exemplar of traditional rural skills in practice".

Colleagues recalled: "With Ruskinian instinct, she fused the practical and scientific with the philosophical and spiritual, evolving a richly holistic management style which quickly became a central principle of the gardens."

By 2003, Sally, her team and various dedicated volunteers, had restored or created seven key gardens. The final push was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and included Ruskin’s Zig-Zaggy Garden.

Another helping hand was Sam, Sally’s faithful driving pony. With a horse-whisperer’s care she put him to work hauling timber at Brantwood, and would hitch him to her cart when they headed off on holiday to Dalton, over the old coffin road.

When she became ill with cancer in her 40s, Sally became less able to cope with Brantwood's physical demands. But she kept on inspiring and teaching others to "find and deepen their innate empathy with nature, to read the soil, the vital signs of plants and the impact of their own presence".

Sally's work was recognised in a book on the gardens by Professor David Ingram, former keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, and she received the Award for Loyal Service from the Professional Gardeners Guild. Brantwood's gardens, hailed as one of the Lake District's jewels, are her "long-lasting and astonishing legacy".

She died at St Mary’s Hospice, Ulverston, and is survived by her brother, Harry Beamish.