D1 Tuesday, 25 June

Tim will collect you from the Hampton by Hilton Edinburgh Airport hotel and, once we’re all together, we’ll drive to Berwick-upon-Tweed, to break our journey and visit Berwick’s Elizabethan ramparts, some of the best-preserved defences in Europe, before crossing to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. This historic island, lying just off the Northumberland coast, and accessible only by a tidal causeway, is a unique and special place.

We spend the rest of the day here, starting with a visit to Lindisfarne Priory, once one of Anglo-Saxon England’s most important places. Its bishops had close links to the Northumbrian kings, who ruled from nearby Bamburgh Castle, and its monks had guardianship of the shrine of St Cuthbert, which brought great wealth to the monastery. The Lindisfarne Gospels, one of the most beautiful and intricate manuscripts ever produced, was made here in the early 8th century – not long before the Vikings ransacked Lindisfarne later that century.

After lunch, in the village, we’ll visit Lindisfarne Castle, a magnificent 16th-century castle built to protect English ships from Scottish raiders. It was renovated some 400 years later by Edwin Lutyens for Edward Hudson, founder of Country Life magazine. Happily, Lutyens collaborated with Gertrude Jekyll, his long-time partner and renowned plantswoman, who designed and planted the enchanting walled garden.

It’s an hour’s drive to Eshott Hall, our home for the next three nights, where we will arrive in good time to relax before drinks and dinner at the hotel.

Today’s driving is approx. 125 miles/200 km

D2 Wednesday, 26 June

We start our day at The Alnwick Garden, a millennium project driven by the Duchess of Northumberland who, with her husband, the Duke, lives next door at Alnwick Castle. The garden occupies the castle’s former kitchen garden, a 12 acre/5ha, 18th-century walled garden, which had become derelict. Today it’s an award-winning and important regional attraction, home to the world’s largest Tai Haku Cherry Orchard, a Rose garden, a Poison garden, a Grand Cascade with 120 water jets, and the world’s largest Treehouse Restaurant!

We'll have lunch at The Alnwick Garden and we’ll make time, too, for a stroll around Alnwick, a busy medieval market town, before an afternoon at Howick Hall. Home to the Grey family since 1319, the gardens are primarily the work of Charles, 5th Earl Grey and his wife Mabel, and later their daughter Lady Mary Howick between 1920 and 2001. They established and maintained an informal and natural style of gardening which continues today and is particularly evident in the woodland walks and the wild bog garden.

Howick Hall is also the spiritual home of Earl Grey tea, specially blended by a Chinese mandarin for Charles, 2nd Earl Grey, Prime Minister from 1830 to 1834, and we will take afternoon tea in the tea room, before a late-afternoon scenic drive along this beautiful stretch of Northumberland coast to Bamburgh, for a walk on its famous sands, admire the magnificence of Bamburgh Castle and enjoy supper at The Potted Lobster.

Today’s driving is approx. 70 miles/110 km

D3 Thursday, 27 June

Charles Jencks is a famous American landscape architect whose work we have seen on various tours, but not Northumberlandia, where we start our day. A unique piece of public art set in a 46-acre community park, Northumberlandia is a stunning human landform sculpture of a reclining lady – and a restoration of the adjacent Shotton surface coal mine.

Doubtless Northumberlandia will divide opinion, but we can discuss that en route to Wallington, the much-loved home to generations of the unconventional Trevelyan family*. Traditionally a Liberal family, Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan joined the Labour Party, an unusual move for a landed and titled member of the gentry, and served in the first two Labour administrations of Ramsay MacDonald (Britain’s first Labour Prime Minister). Sir Charles gave Wallington to the National Trust in 1942, allowing us to enjoy the house and all its attendant treasures, its wonderful gardens, especially the East Wood, with its red squirrels, and the hidden walled garden nestled in the woods.

*Laura Trevelyan, a former BBC journalist, is actively confronting her family’s link with slavery.

Our final visit is to Bide-a-Wee, a garden created from a small sandstone quarry over the last 30 years by Mark Robson, who also runs a highly-respected nursery from here. The site was originally bare and exposed, which is hard to believe when you see the fruition of Mark’s hard work.

We return to Eshott Hall for drinks and dinner.

Today’s driving is approx. 70 miles/110 km

D4 Friday, 28 June

We spend the day on and around Hadrian's Wall, starting on the B6318, a B-road west of Newcastle upon Tyne, following the line of Hadrian’s Wall, to our first stop at Chesters Roman Fort, a cavalry fort, known as Cilurnum, and one of a series of permanent forts built during the construction of Hadrian’s Wall. Housing some 500 cavalrymen, Chesters was built in about AD 124 and remained occupied until the Romans left Britain in the 5th century.

Continuing west, we visit Housesteads, the most complete example of a Roman fort in Britain and one of the best-known from the entire Roman Empire. It was built within a decade of AD 122 and was garrisoned by an 800-strong infantry regiment until the end of the 4th century. Excavations have revealed major buildings, defences and a civilian settlement outside its walls.

After a picnic lunch, on the Wall, we’ll visit Vindolanda, an important garrison pre-dating the Wall. Remarkably, Vindolanda was demolished and completely rebuilt no fewer than nine times, each time leaving a distinctive mark on the landscape. It is internationally famous for the discovery of the Vindolanda Tablets (see also below), the thin postcard-sized pieces of wood used to write messages.

From the Wall, it’s a ninety-minute drive to The Grasmere Hotel, our home for the next four nights, where we will arrive in good time to check in before a stroll around the village and drinks and dinner.

Today’s driving is approx. 130 miles/210 km

D5 Saturday, 29 June

A very different day, today, with much less driving and starting on our doorstep, exploring Grasmere, before meeting on the other side of the village at Dove Cottage, William & Dorothy Wordsworth’s Lakeland home where we will enjoy a tour of the cottage and have time, too, to explore the garden and the award-winning museum.

After lunch in the cafe, we drive south to Holehird Gardens, the gardens of the Lakeland Horticultural Society. This superb garden not only enjoys stunning views across Windermere, but contains no fewer than four National Collections and is gardened entirely by the society's volunteer members. From Holehird, we cross Windermere on the Hawkshead Ferry to Brantwood, the home of John Ruskin a colossus of his day and true polymath. This great Victorian was an artist, poet, philosopher, philanthropist, prestigious writer and much else besides, and we’ll spend the afternoon in his garden and home learning of his life and legacy.

If time permits, we will pay a brief visit to Stott Park Bobbin Mills, the only surviving example of a Lakeland bobbin mill. Built in 1835, it was one of over 100 such mills that operated in the Lake District from the 1780s, supplying the millions of bobbins that were needed by Lancashire’s cotton mills – Stott Park survived until 1971.

We will have dinner en route home to Grasmere at the Drunken Duck, a pub I have known since my teens, though it is much changed since then.

Today’s driving is approx. 50 miles/80 km

D6 Sunday, 30 June

We spend the day amongst the gentle rolling fells of South Lakeland, starting with a scenic drive to Hawkshead, where Wordsworth was schooled and near to where Beatrix Potter lived, for a stroll around this pretty market village, before continuing south for the morning at Holker Hall, home of the Cavendish family, the junior branch of the Chatsworth Cavendishes. You’ll have plenty of time to enjoy the house and its 23 acres of immaculately kept gardens, before a brief visit to nearby Cartmel, a picturesque medieval village, famous for its Priory and its world-famous Sticky Toffee Pudding!

And then to Levens Hall for the afternoon at this extraordinary garden. The house started life as a Pele Tower built c1250-1300, and grew into an impressive Elizabethan house. Its 10-acre garden, designed in the 1690s by Monsieur Guillaume Beaumont, gardener to King James II, retains many of the original features including the world’s oldest topiary gardens. This surreal and unique collection of ancient box and yew trees, in abstract or geometric form, rises up from a beautiful display of underplanting, populated with an ever-changing array of over 30,000 bedding plants, all grown on-site in their own greenhouses. More extraordinary still, is the fact that Chris Crowder, head gardener at Levens Hall for some 36 years, is still only the 10th head gardener in some 300 years!

We will dine at the Punch Bowl Inn, in Crosthwaite, a favourite Lakeland eatery of ours.

Today’s driving is approx. 80 miles/130 km

D7 Monday, 1 July

It’s the turn of the Northern Lakes and, depending on the weather, we plan to take you on a tour of some of Lakeland’s finest scenery – getting off the beaten track, itself not an easy feat in such a popular place, and showing off some splendid views and visiting some of the less-well frequented villages.

Whatever we do and wherever we get to, we will end up at Lowther Castle & Gardens for lunch and much of the afternoon exploring this huge garden restoration project. Historically the seat of the Earls of Lonsdale, Lowther Castle is a particular gem. Built at the turn of the 19th century on the site of two previous houses, the castle was a grand affair boasting a room for every day of the year and a garden the envy of the North.

In 1957 the castle was demolished. Just the façade and outer walls remained standing and for over half a century the place was empty – home only to chickens, pigs and the odd bat and the gardens were lost. But in 2008 a 20-year master plan was put in place and work began, its 130-acre garden has been transformed, its ruins dusted down and its story well-told.

Late in the afternoon we will drive to Pooley Bridge and put you on an Ullswater Steamer for a cruise on Ullswater to Glenridding, from where we will go into Ambleside for a stroll around this central Lakeland market town, before returning to Grasmere for drinks and our end-of-tour dinner.

Today’s driving is approx. 60 miles/100 km

D8 Tuesday, 2 July

There is much to influence our decision-making when planning the tours, and route selection is key – and that is why our final visit of the tour is neither in Cumbria nor Northumberbria, but the Scottish Borders.

We going to The Great Tapestry of Scotland, Europe’s largest tapestry, largely because the route from the Lakes to Edinburgh along the A7 is so much prettier than the motorway via Glasgow. And why would we pass up such an opportunity? The Great Tapestry of Scotland has very rapidly become the talk of the Borders and a must-see destination.

The tapestry itself is extraordinary and works on so many levels – the history it depicts and the history of those who made it, the artistry, skill and technique and the sheer vibrancy of the whole project. It is a wonderful thing and we are much looking forward to showing it off.

Oh! and this part of Scotland was, once, a part of the Kingdom of Northumbria, so it counts.

We’ll have lunch at The Great Tapestry of Scotland cafe before we return to Edinburgh Airport, where the tour ends. If you are staying in the UK and don't need, or wish, to return to Edinburgh, then please let us know your onward travel plans, so that we may assist you in getting to your next destination.

Today’s driving is approx. 150 miles/240 km