GO BRITAIN: England's floral riches make it the perfect country for a horticultural tour – and you can stop off in Wales on the way, writes TOM DOORLEY
I LOVE VISITING OTHER people’s gardens. Especially if they are much bigger, grander and better funded than anything I could manage. There are lots in Ireland that have enchanted me, particularly Annes Grove, in Co Cork, Mount Congreve, in Co Waterford, and Birr Castle, in Co Offaly. But if you want a deluge of great gardens – an embarrassment of horticultural activity – Britain is the place to go.
I’ve never managed the trip that I outline here in one fell swoop. It’s certainly possible, but it would require considerable stamina and a lot of concentrated driving. But the itinerary makes a good skeleton on which to build the flesh of a holiday with serious horticultural overtones.
Everybody seems to have satnav these days, but I used maps in my explorations. And, England being a nation of gardeners, most of the destinations are clearly marked.
My idea is that you start and finish in the Welsh port of Holyhead – which, conveniently, is close to one of the great gardens of the world.
Bodnant is astonishing. One look and you know that these gardens, started in the 1870s, have a plant collection that rivals those of some of the most distinguished botanic gardens.
The peaty soil and damp climate – it’s very like Ireland around here – mean Bodnant excels in the acid-lovers. The camellias and rhododendrons, including a range of Bodnant hybrid rhododendrons, are famous, but Bodnant’s appeal goes much further.
There’s some clever use of water – derived from a modest stream that is dammed to great effect – and Italianate terracing that will put Irish visitors in mind of Powerscourt. In this case the view is of Snowdonia, not Great Sugar Loaf.
The garden at Bodnant, but not the house or the estate, were given to the National Trust (nationaltrust.org.uk), with an endowment, in 1949 by the late Lord Aberconway, who was for many years president of the Royal Horticultural Society.
Not far away, over the border with England in Cheshire, is Tatton Park, the National Trust property that attracts more visitors than any other (possibly because it’s so close to the densely populated industrial heartland of England).
Off junction 7 of the M56 is an 800-hectare park laid out in the style of Humphrey Repton, a formal garden designed by Joseph Paxton in the 1840s, a brilliantly restored walled kitchen garden with a full complement of Edwardian glasshouses, a home farm with Tamworth pigs, and a Japanese garden, complete with island and Shinto temple, which was rescued from the wilderness in recent years.
Holiday cottages are available to rent, and the RHS holds a flower show here every year, at the end of July.
Down the M6, a few kilometres from Stafford, is Shugborough Hall, which, like Tatton Park, is owned by the National Trust and run by the local county council.
The attractions here are the 200-year-old walled garden, which was restored in 2006, and the house’s wood-fired brewery – the only one in Britain. It produces very pleasant bitter that you can buy to take away. The house also has a model farm, watermill and working Victorian kitchen with tea rooms.
Lots of anodyne hotels cluster in the shadow of the M6, but you can get genuine farmhouse bed and breakfast, too. Slindon (00-44-1782-791237, slindon housefarm.co.uk) is a working dairy farm close to Shugborough. The Wolseley Arms, nearby, is a fine old pub that serves Marston’s Pedigree bitter and a huge menu of perfectly adequate bar food.
Now, having negotiated Birmingham and got on to the M40 heading south, it’s easy to get to Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill and a vast monument to English baroque. The attractions here, for the garden enthusiast, are the vast, formal parterres and the clever manipulation of the landscape by Capability Brown (who destroyed the schemes of John Vanbrugh in the process). This involved damming the River Glyme in order to replace the original narrow canal with a grand lake. The dam itself is being restored at the moment; work should end next month.
Blenheim is much more about landscaping, in the grandest manner, than about plants (although the estate has some fine specimen trees). The world’s largest living collection of plants is to the south, down the M40, anticlockwise around the M25 and in towards London on the M4 to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. The end of the motorway delivers you almost to the door. So huge and fascinating is Kew that you need at least a week to get to grips with it.
For me there are certain highlights that could be covered in a day or two, such as the Temperate House, which is the world’s largest surviving glasshouse, the treetop walkway 18m off the ground, the herbaceous grounds laid out by Joseph Hooker in the 1850s in the order of plant families, and the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art.
Kew is quite close to Skye Gyngell’s lovely Petersham Nurseries Cafe Teahouse (00- 44-20-86053627, petersham nurseries.com), which is not so much a cafe as a very funky restaurant that uses lots of very, very fresh produce. It’s a stiff walk – or you can take a 65 bus.
The gardens at Sissinghurst Castle are among the most famous in the world – and certainly among my favourites. (From Kew head back to the M25, then come off at junction 5, on to the M26 and then the M20 to Maidstone.)
Created by Vita Sackville-West in the 1930s, Sissinghurst Castle Gardens could be described as Gertrude Jekyll with a twist – in this case a very conscious decision to create “rooms” within the garden and to encourage a sense of mystery. The effect is amazing. Sissinghurst seems much bigger than it is, simply because there are no grand views (except the odd glimpse of the Weald of Kent). It is easy to see the influence here of Lawrence Johnston of Hidcote Manor, whose work Sackville-West admired.
Sissinghurst passed to the National Trust in 1967, but Sackville-West’s grandson, Adam Nicholson, and his wife, the gardening writer Sarah Raven, occupy the castle as “resident donors”. The kitchen garden produces fruit and vegetables for the restaurant, and the couple are restoring traditional Wealden agriculture to the castle farm.
The George in Cranbrook (00-44-1580-713348, thegeorge hotelkent.co.uk) was recently refurbished as a boutique hotel.
I think it’s worth the 40-minute drive from here to Britain’s first pub to receive a Michelin star, the Sportsman (Seasalter, Whitstable, Kent, 00-44-1227-273370, thesports manseasalter.co.uk). Friendly, fun and not very dear.
We now make our way to Sussex. Head for Hayward’s Heath and then Handcross, close to which you will find Nymans, which was started in the 1880s, before the concept of garden rooms. Instead it’s divided into quite large sections. In a sense it rambles in a casual kind of way.
There are strong Irish connections here. The stunning herbaceous borders were laid out by our own William Robinson, whose book The English Flower Gardenwas the definitive work for almost a century, and the gardens were overseen by the founder's grand-daughter, the late Countess of Rosse, and her husband, of Birr Castle. Nymans feels much bigger than its 12 hectares. It also feels like a very personal garden, the legacy of generations of plant collectors.
Now head north on the A23 towards Crawley and take the A264 south towards Worthing and the A24. At Washington turn on to the A283 for Parham House Gardens, just below the South Downs. The fine Elizabethan house was built in 1577; the walled garden, whose almost two hectares combine herbaceous borders, orchard, herb garden and kitchen gardens, is difficult to date. The Wendy House, a miniature two-storey brick cottage, was built here in 1928 for the children of the house. Some of the wall is almost certainly contemporary with the house. There are more than 10 hectares of “pleasure grounds” and 120 hectares of ancient deer park. Parham is now the home of Lady Emma Barnard (nee Guinness), who grew up at Farmleigh, in Castleknock, and her family.
At nearby Arundel, Burpham Country House (00-44-1903- 882160, burphamcountryhouse.com) is a small, elegant hotel. From here you can meander through some lovely countryside, including much Jane Austen territory, by driving through Petworth, Petersfield and around Winchester.
From Winchester, take the A34 north and then turn west on to the A303 past Andover. Carry on towards Wincanton until you see Stourhead signposted to your right.
Stourhead is one of the great landscape gardens, a vast early-Georgian park with stunning woodland, a series of lakes, Palladian temples and a fine collection of Chippendale in the early 18th-century mansion house. I think it looks at its best in autumn, when the arboretum really starts to glow. The restaurant uses local produce, and there’s an excellent farm shop.
Now head for the B3092 and the M4 westwards, and turn on to the M5, heading north. Turn off for Evesham and check into the eccentric Evesham Hotel (00-44-1386-765566, evesham hotel.com). The 600-strong wine list has featured no French or German wines since 1977, and room keys are attached to teddy bears.
A short drive down the country lanes that start on the outskirts of this little town will take you to Hidcote Manor. The garden here was started in 1905 by Lawrence Johnston, who solved the problem of dealing with a windswept site by clever and extensive use of hedges, “rooms”, sheltered areas and “corridors” in a way that was to inspire Sackville-West at Sissinghurst. Views of the Cotswolds are framed in elegant wrought-iron gates. This has been one of the most influential 20th-century gardens.
Just across the road is a rather different kind of garden, Kiftsgate Court, the shape of which dates from 1918, when the current owner’s grandparents bought the property. It was laid out with a lot of advice from Johnston, which explains its fairly formal skeleton. But the planting is anything but restrained, and old shrub roses grow here in astonishing profusion. The thorniest of roses, R filipes ‘Kiftsgate’, originated here.
Rejoin the M5 and head north, via the M6, to the M54 towards Shrewsbury. Turn off at junction 6, towards Market Drayton on the A442. This will take you to Hodnet Hall, which has more than 20 hectares of 20th-century gardens that are open to the public for a few days each month over the extended summer. In some ways they follow the general shape of the great classical landscape gardens, but on a much smaller scale and with very dense planting, clustered around ponds and lakes.
Now it’s time to head for home, via the A41 and A55 and Holyhead. There may be time to see Plas Newydd Country House and Gardens, on Anglesey, with fine views of Snowdonia and a woodland walk along the coast of the Menai Strait.
* Tom Doorley travelled to and from Holyhead as a guest of Irish Ferries
Where to find each of the gardens
* Bodnant Garden Tal-y-Cafn, Colwyn Bay, Conwy, Wales, 00-44-1492-650460, bodnantgarden.co.uk. Open daily until November 15th.
* Tatton Park Knutsford, Cheshire, England, 00-44-1625-374435, tattonpark.org.uk. Closed on Mondays.
* Shugborough Hall Milford, Staffordshire, 00-44-1889-881388, www.shugborough.org.uk. Open daily until October 29th.
* Blenheim Palace Woodstock, Oxfordshire, 00-44-8700-602080 blenheimpalace.com. Open daily until November 1st.
* Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Richmond, Surrey, 00-44-20-83325655, kew.org. Open daily.
* Sissinghurst Castle Cranbrook, Kent, 00-44-1580-710701, nationaltrust.org.uk/ sissinghurst. Open until November 1st; closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
* Nymans Handcross, West Sussex, 00-44-1444-405250, nationaltrust.org.uk/nymans. Open all year from Wednesday to Sunday.
* Parham House Gardens Storrington, Pulborough, West Sussex, 00-44-1903- 742021, parhaminsussex.co.uk. Open Sundays and from Tuesday to Friday until September 30th, then Sundays only in October.
* Stourhead Stourton, Warminster, Wiltshire, 00-44-1747-841152, nationaltrust.org/stourhead. Garden open daily all year; house open Friday-Tuesday until November 1st. Restaurant and farm shop open daily.
* Hidcote Manor Hidcote Bartrim, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, 00-44-1386- 438333, nationaltrust.org/ hidcote. Open Saturday- Wednesday until November 1st, then weekends only.
* Kiftsgate Court Mickleton, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, 00-44-1386- 438777, kiftsgate.co.uk. Open Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays, 2pm-6pm, then closed until April.
* Hodnet Hall Gardens Hodnet, Market Drayton, Shropshire, 00-44-1630- 685786, hodnethallgardens.org. Open certain days from Easter until September; check website for details.
* Plas Newydd Country House and Gardens Llanfairpwll, Anglesey, Wales, 00-44-1248- 715272, nationaltrust.org/ plasnewydd. Open Saturday- Wednesday until November 4th, then weekends only.
Go there
Irish Ferries (irishferries.com) sails to Holyhead from Dublin. Stena Lina (stena line.ie) sails from Dublin and Dún Laoghaire.