Great Gardens

D1 Tuesday, 15 June

RHS Wisley & Hever Castle

Tim will collect you from the Sheraton Heathrow Hotel at 09:30, and we’ll soon start the tour with a visit to RHS Garden Wisley, the headquarters and flagship garden of the Royal Horticultural Society, one of the great gardens of the world.

From its beginnings, RHS Wisley has been about plantsmanship and experimentation, and it continues in that spirit today, most recently opening RHS Hilltop, the Home of Gardening Science, a state-of-the-art science building surrounded by three spectacular new gardens embracing the latest ideas in horticulture.

After lunch at Wisley, we’ll visit the gardens at Hever Castle, the 13th-century childhood home of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife and mother of Elizabeth I, but more recently, the home of William Waldorf Astor, a wealthy Anglo-American. In the early 20th century, Astor used his great fortune to restore and extend the Castle and lay out the gardens (between 1904 and 1908), including its 38-acre lake, dug by hand by a small army of workmen, the Italian Garden, and the English Rose Garden with its over 5,000 roses.

From Hever we’ll drive to Hawkhurst and the Queen’s Inn, our home for the next three nights, where we’ll be in good time to settle in before drinks and dinner.

Today's driving is about 80 miles/130 km

D2 Wednesday, 16 June

Great Dixter & Pashley Manor

Our day starts at Great Dixter with an early private opening, a golden hour before the gates open to the general public. These wonderful gardens, created by Christopher Lloyd and maintained by him until his death in 2006, are now in the care of a team led by Fergus Garrett, Lloyd’s trusty lieutenant. The gardens at Great Dixter are as magnificent as they are bountiful, and they’re inspirational at every turn.

We leave Dixter late morning to visit nearby Pashley Manor, for lunch and the early part of the afternoon at this glorious 11-acre English Country Garden par excellence. It is one of our customers’ favourite gardens and, with its sweeping lawns, well-planted borders, box hedges, historic walled garden and majestic trees, it is easy to see why.

Mid-afternoon, we visit the hilltop town of Rye, a medieval citadel with an interesting past. Indeed, when Normandy was returned to the French in 1205, Rye went with it and wasn't reunited with the English Crown until 1247! Today, it’s a bustling town with cobbled streets, a hilltop church and lots of independent shops.

Plenty to explore before dinner at The Plough, a brilliant local eatery on our way home to Hawkhust.

Today's driving is about 60 miles/100 km

D3 Thursday, 17 June

Goodnestone Park & Sissinghurst Castle

We begin today with a drive across Romney Marshes to visit the gardens at Goodnestone Park, the one-time home of Jane Austen's brother, Edward Austen Knight. Goodnestone is a romantic garden with beautiful roses, a superb collection of trees, and a striking triple-bay walled garden. It has a good cafe too, where we’ll enjoy lunch.

We’ll then traverse the Kent Downs to take in the views above the Devil’s Kneading Trough, before our afternoon visit to Sissinghurst Castle Gardens. Created in the 1930s by husband-and-wife team Harold Nicholson and Vita Sackville-West, the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle are among the most famous in the world, and we have deliberately timed our visit to enjoy the last couple of hours of the day, when many of the visitors will have left.

Lazy drinks and dinner at The Queen’s Inn.

Today's driving is about 100 miles/160 km

D4 Friday, 18 June

Nymans & Woolbeding

We leave the comforts of the Queen’s Inn and head west to visit Nymans, a garden lovers’ garden. By the early 19th century, Nymans had become the country residence of a succession of wealthy industrialists, and, in the 1890s, it became home to Ludwig and Annie Messel. They created the garden, and successive generations of Messels enhanced it until 1953, when it was bequeathed to the National Trust. The interesting history is here for those who enjoy these things.

We’ll have lunch at Nymans and then continue west for our inaugural visit to Woolbeding, a garden created over the past 50 years by the late Simon Sainsbury and his partner Stewart Grimshaw, and several well-renowned garden designers. We are looking forward to seeing it.

Woolbeding is very close to The Spread Eagle, our home for the next three nights, where we’ll be in good time to settle in before drinks and dinner.

Today's driving is about 80 miles/130 km

D5 Saturday, 19 June

West Dean & Denmans

Our day starts at West Dean Gardens. Famous for its restored Walled Kitchen Garden, with a complete range of Victorian glasshouses and over a mile of walls covered in espaliered fruit trees, there’s also a further 35 acres of gardens, including Harold Peto’s 1912 Edwardian Pergola, an award-winning Sunken Garden, and more than 500,000 spring bulbs.

West Dean has a super cafe, where we’ll have lunch, before a short visit to Denmans Garden, the former home and garden of influential landscape designer John Brookes. It is a contemporary 4-acre country garden designed as a series of spaces flowing into one another, elegantly but informally.

We’ll enjoy the last couple of hours of the afternoon in nearby Chichester, a handsome cathedral city with Roman roots.

Dinner either in some chic Chichester eatery or at one of the many local pubs en route to Midhurst.

Today's driving is about 40 miles/65 km

D6 Sunday, 20 June

Arundel Castle & Parham House

The day starts at Arundel Castle, the family home and seat of the Dukes of Norfolk. Built by Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Arundel, in the 11th century, the Castle has descended directly from 1138 to the present day. Its extensive grounds and gardens are world-renowned and no less impressive than the castle itself, and include subtropical borders, two glasshouses, herbaceous borders, walled kitchen gardens, and a welcome return to the stumpery. There is also the exquisite Fitzalan Chapel.

We have a little time to explore the town before our afternoon visit to Parham House, an Elizabethan house in the most wonderful setting, surrounded by its gardens and 18th-century Pleasure Grounds. We’ll have time to visit the house and explore the gardens.

A relaxing dinner at our hotel.

Today's driving is about 50 miles/80 km

D7 Monday, 21 June

Mottisfont & Minterne

We bid our farewells to The Spread Eagle, load the minibus and head ever further west to Dorset.

Our journey takes us past Winchester to our first stop at Mottisfont, to visit its National Collection of Pre-1900 Shrub Roses. Mottisfont began life as an Augustinian priory, became a home for William, 1st Baron Sandys in 1536, and stayed in the family for nearly four centuries. In 1934, the Russells purchased Mottisfont, and it became a social hub of the day.

Today, Mottisfont is celebrated for its internationally significant rose garden.

After lunch, we’ll continue to Dorset, stopping again at either Minterne or some other suitable garden en route to The Grange at Oborne, our home for the next three nights, where we’ll be in good time to settle in before drinks and dinner.

Today's driving is about 120 miles/190 km

D8 Tuesday, 22 June

Forde Abbey & Mapperton

We begin with a visit to Forde Abbey, a former 12th-century Cistercian Abbey on the River Axe and surrounded by wonderful gardens. It became a family home during the 17th century and has an important collection of tapestries. More recently, the present owners have transformed the gardens into the stunning 30 acres of award-winning gardens and ponds we see today.

After lunch at Forde Abbey, we’ll cross Dorset to visit the gardens at Mapperton and its wonderful Italianate Gardens. Designed in the 1920s by Ethel Labouchere, they were inspired by Harold Peto’s Italianate style. These gardens lead to the wild garden, an arboretum and woodland walks.

Dinner will be in some fantastic country pub, en route back to our hotel.

Today's driving is about 60 miles/100 km

D9 Wednesday, 23 June

Hestercombe & East Lambrook

We start our final full day visiting Hestercombe, and its three gardens and three centuries of garden design. The first garden is a Georgian landscape garden, designed by Coplestone Warre Bampfylde in the mid-18th century, and is contemporary with the house, and the second is a Victorian Terrace and Shrubbery. But it is the third garden, an exquisite formal Edwardian garden designed by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll, that everyone comes to see. Altogether, there are some fifty acres of woodland walks, temples, terraces, pergolas, lakes and cascades.

We’ll leave Hestercombe for lunch and a brief visit to the English Willow Centre before visiting East Lambrook Manor Garden, a historically important cottage garden created by renowned plantswoman and author Margery Fish. It is known for its informal charm and features winding paths and themed garden rooms.

We only ‘discovered’ it in 2026, and we can’t wait to return. We will meet the owners and, hopefully, get a tour of the manor house too.

We’ll return to Oborne for a lovely evening and our end-of-tour dinner.

Today's driving is about 80 miles/130 km

D10 Thursday, 24 June

Stourhead

What we hope was an immersive and magical garden tour concludes with a visit to Stourhead, a magical garden par excellence. This world-famous eighteenth-century landscape garden first opened in the 1740s, with one magazine describing it as “A living work of art” – and it is. It is a classical garden of its time and has, as its centrepiece, a magnificent lake designed to reflect the surrounding classical temples, mystical grottoes and other follies. It is absolutely the place to sit and contemplate life.

We’ll have plenty of time to visit the house and the walled gardens and grab some lunch before we head east and return you all to the Sheraton Heathrow Hotel, where we plan to be by about 3pm.

Today's driving is about 120 miles/190 km