Cotswolds & Oxford
2704 | 25 to 31 May | 7 days | maximum number 12
Waterperry Gardens, Broughton Grange, Upton Wold, Kiftsgate Court, Hidcote Manor, Kelmscott Manor, Buscot Park, Burford Garden Company, NGS Open Gardens, Daylesford Organics, Rousham House, a day in the historic university town of Oxford and more…
As quintessentially English as afternoon tea…
We’ve been showing off the Cotswolds for over twenty years, long enough to make this tour a permanent annual fixture. We know the Cotswolds well. We know its quiet country lanes, its bustling market towns and its pretty, chocolate-box villages. We know the best country pubs and the best places to eat.
But it’s not all chocolate-box villages and rolling Cotswolds hills – the Cotswolds boast some of England’s finest and most influential gardens, including the world-famous gardens at Hidcote Manor, the highly acclaimed contemporary gardens at Broughton Grange and the historically important gardens at Rousham House.
It’s a fantastic tour. Eight or nine beautiful gardens, plus a whole day exploring the delights of Oxford and a whole week criss-crossing one of England’s most iconic and idyllic landscapes. To cap it off, we stay at The Slaughters Country Inn, an excellent hotel in Lower Slaughter, as pretty and picturesque a village as you could ask for!
Prices
Per person, sharing
0,000 GBP | 0,000 USD | 0.000 EUR
Prices are per person, sharing a double or twin room
Per person, single occupancy
0,000 GBP | 0,000 USD | 0.000 EUR
Prices are per person, for the single occupancy of one room
Booking, interest, questions and payments
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Please read the Booking & Paying page and the comments in the additional information below.
Itinerary
Scroll down for a tour area map and additional information – accommodation, eating, and other attractions, etc
D1 Tuesday, 25 May
The Yew Tree Garden, Broughton Grange
Waterperry Gardens & Broughton Grange
Tim will collect you from the Sheraton Heathrow Hotel at 10:00.
Once we’re all together and loaded the minibus, we’ll head west for a late morning visit to Waterperry Gardens, the gardens of the famous former School of Horticulture for Ladies, founded in 1932 by Miss Beatrix Havergal. Among many other things, the gardens include one of the finest herbaceous borders in the country.
After lunch at Waterperry, we’ll visit Broughton Grange, a stunning contemporary garden set amongst some 350 acres of parkland. The gardens were brought into the modern era by the current owner, Stephen Hester, who commissioned award-winning garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith to transform the six-acre walled garden. It is now widely recognised as one of the most significant private contemporary gardens in Britain.
From Broughton Grange, we continue west into the heart of the Cotswolds, to the pretty village of Lower Slaughter and the Slaughters Country Inn, our home for the next six nights, where we’ll arrive in good time to check in and relax, before drinks and dinner at the hotel.
Today's driving is about 100 miles/160 km
D2 Wednesday, 26 May
The Old Tennis Court, Kiftsgate Court
Upton Wold & Kiftsgate Court
Our day starts with a private guided tour of Upton Wold, an exceptional private garden created by its owners, Ian and Caroline Bond, from little more than farmland, two ancient yews, an imposing holly, some old apple trees and a very beautiful view. They started the garden in the early 1970s, when they took over the farm from Ian’s father, creating a series of rooms and open spaces, all with a different look and feel. The garden contains one of the most comprehensive collections of walnut trees in the country, a fact which Ian is immensely proud of and exceedingly knowledgeable about.
We’ll visit Moreton-in-Marsh for lunch and a good look around this lovely north Cotswolds market town, before heading to the northern edge of the Cotswold Hills, for the afternoon at Kiftsgate Court, an Arts & Crafts garden, enjoying far-reaching views over the Vale of Evesham. Kiftsgate is a feminine garden, twice passed from mother to daughter, from Heather Muir, who created the garden, to her daughter, Diany Binny, to Diany’s daughter, Anne Chambers, who, with her husband, Jonny, gardens Kiftsgate today.
We’ll enjoy dinner at The Halfway on our way home to Lower Slaughter.
Today's driving is about 50 miles/80 km
The Cotswolds
The Cotswolds, or more properly, the Cotswold Hills, are a range of rolling yellow oolitic limestone hills running roughly southwest to northeast, some 90 miles/145 km long by 25 miles/40 km wide, largely in the counties of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. The area is known for its picturesque stone-built market towns and villages, each a slightly different hue of stone, varying in colour from a warm grey to a deep, rich honey colour. The area is designated a National Landscape.
Since Norman times, the Cotswolds have been inextricably linked to sheep farming and wool production, and it is the medieval wool trade that made the Cotswolds prosperous, a prosperity which remains today. The Cotswolds are notable, too, as something of a spiritual home of the Arts and Crafts Movement, examples of which we will see throughout the tour.
D3 Thursday, 27 May
The world-famous Blackwell Book Shop, Oxford
Oxford
We spend the whole day in Oxford, a busy, historic city most usually associated with its university. The University of Oxford can trace its teaching to 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation. It also has the world’s largest university press and the largest academic library system.
Important though the university and its 39 colleges are, Oxford is much more than that. From Alice in Wonderland, Inspector Morse and Harry Potter to boutique shopping, exceptional museums and the birthplace of the Mini, there is a great deal to occupy a day in Oxford. To get you started, undergraduate guides from Footprint Tours will show off some of the highlights on a morning walking tour.
There is plenty of time to explore and visit colleges and museums in the afternoon, before we meet for tea and scones at the Old Parsonage Hotel.
We will return to Lower Slaughter for dinner.
Today's driving is about 60 miles/100 km
D4 Friday, 28 May
Hidcote Manor
Hidcot Manor & something else
Our day starts in Chipping Campden, exploring this beautiful, honey-stoned Cotswold market town and visiting St James' Church. Built during the 13th and 14th centuries, St James’ is one of the finest wool churches in the country. Then to Hidcote Manor, the world-famous Arts & Crafts gardens created by Lawrence Johnston, an American anglophile who settled in Britain with his mother. He bought Hidcote in 1907, was gardening by 1910 and had 12 gardeners by the 1920s! Hidcote was his life's work and remains one of England's most influential 20th-century gardens. Read its history here.
After lunch, at Hidcote, we’ll visit the beautiful gardens at Bourton House. Known for its terraces and wide, well-planted herbaceous borders, the garden also features a magnificent raised basket pond from the 1851 Great Exhibition.
We will return to Lower Slaughter for dinner, stopping in Stow-on-the-Wold for a stroll around its shops.
Today's driving is about 50 miles/80 km
D5 Saturday, 29 May
The Pool, Four Seasons walled garden, Buscot Park
Kelmscott Manor & Buscot Park
We start our day in Burford, one of the Cotswold’s principal market towns and one of its finest, before a morning visit to Kelmscott Manor. Built around 1600 for Thomas Turner and originally called Lower Farm, Kelmscott is most famously associated with the celebrated designer, William Morris, who, together with Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, rented the house from 1871 until his death in 1896.
We will have lunch at Kelmscott before spending the afternoon at nearby Buscot Park, the late 18th-century home of Lord Farringdon and his fabulous art collection. The house sits on a rise, overlooking its immaculately landscaped grounds and surrounded by other garden features, not least its ever-colourful Four Seasons walled garden, a splendid Harold Peto water garden and extensive woodland walks.
We’ll make our way to Shipton-under-Wychwood for dinner at one of our favourite pubs, The Lamb Inn.
Today's driving is about 60 miles/100 km
Oxford
Most famously, the city is home to the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world, an institution first mentioned in 12th-century records. Oxford is also an important centre of motor manufacturing, ever since Morris Motors established a factory in the city in 1910. Even today, it is BMW’s principal production site for Minis.
To get the best out of your day in Oxford, we suggest that you research your priorities for the day. Experience Oxfordshire lists things to do and see in Oxford and is the official county tourist website.
D6 Sunday, 30 May
Weavers’ Cottages, Arlington Row, Bibury
The Coln Valley & NGS Open Gardens
We begin the day with a leisurely meander along the Coln Valley, stopping at Coln Rogers to visit its Saxon church, and Bibury, to visit Arlington Row, a row of 17th-century weavers' cottages.
After lunch at the fabulous Burford Garden Company, an extraordinary garden centre, we’ll spend the afternoon exploring private gardens courtesy of the National Garden Scheme (NGS).
In most years, some 3,000 to 4,000 gardens across England & Wales open their gates to the public and donate the entrance fee to the NGS. The NGS raises these funds for nursing, health and gardening charities, and, since 1927, when the first gardens opened to raise money for nursing charities, it has raised over £74m.
We’ll return to Lower Slaughter for a relaxing evening and an end-of-tour dinner.
Today's driving is about 80 miles/130 km
D7 Monday, 31 May
Pigeon House Garden, Rousham House
Rousham House
Our final day starts at Daylesford, an organic farm shop like no other, where we will pick up supplies for our picnic lunch, before visiting Rousham House, an historically important, 18th-century landscape garden designed by William Kent. Not only is it one of the few gardens of this period to have escaped significant alteration, but, in addition to Kent’s glorious landscape garden, it has two large walled gardens, filled with herbaceous borders, parterres and a wonderful, original pigeon house. A marvellous spot for our picnic lunch.
The Sheraton Heathrow Hotel is about a ninety-minute drive away, where we plan to be by 14:30, in good time for evening flights home.
Today's driving is about 100 miles/160 km
Onward travel
Please let us know if you are staying in Britain and don't wish to return to Heathrow/Edinburgh Airport/Glasgow with the rest of the group. We will assist you, if we can, in getting to your next destination.
Maps and additional information
Tour area map
Additional information
Sleeping and eating
We will stay in the heart of the Cotswolds at The Slaughters Country Inn, for all six nights of the tour, in the impossibly pretty village of Lower Slaughter.
We dine in at our hotel on four evenings and dine out twice, once at The Halfway, a superb pub which we discovered three years ago, and once at The Lamb Inn, in Shipton-under-Wychwood, one of our favourite pubs.
Gardens and other attractions
Few areas of England can compete with the quality and range of the gardens in the Cotswolds. Arts & Crafts gardens, like Hidcote Manor, first visited in 1931 by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, the then-new owners of Sissinghurst Castle, and Kiftsgate Court, gardened by three generations of women. Historic landscapes at Buscot Park (Harold Peto) and Rousham House (William Kent), and contemporary gardens, like those at Upton Wold and at Broughton Grange. It has it all.
Bedrooms & upgrades
Ordinarily, we book standard rooms (however so described by the hotel) for all our customers, and these rooms may vary, in size and features, from room to room within the hotel.
Single travellers
Single travellers will have their own room, typically a small double room or, occasionally, a twin room.
Upgrades
If you would like to upgrade your room, please look at the hotel’s website and then contact us with your request.
Do not contact the hotel directly.
Harold Peto Water Garden, Buscot Park
Joining instructions
The meeting arrangements are set out in Day 1 of the itinerary, above, and will be confirmed by email 13 weeks before the tour starts.
Meeting points
The Sheraton Heathrow Hotel is on Colnbrook Bypass, on the northern edge of Heathrow Airport. Click here to see its location in Google Maps.
The hotels we use as meeting points are chosen for their location, the ease of access for the minibus and because they afford our customers, whether staying there or not, a comfortable and secure place to wait.
It is not because we endorse the hotel.
Accuracy & faithfulness
When describing the tour, we try to be as accurate as possible, and when we undertake the tour, we try to be faithful to the itinerary.
However, changes do occur, either necessarily or unavoidably, and we ask for your understanding when this happens.
Useful links
Click here for some useful links.
These links are to notable tourism, heritage, horticultural and cultural organisations, and travel and transport authorities.
Please let us know if any links are dysfunctional.
Acknowledgements
Finally, we would like to acknowledge the assistance of the many guidebooks and websites we use in planning our tours.
Thank you.