D1 Thursday, 12 June

Wedgwood & Little Moreton Hall

Tim will collect you from the Sheraton Heathrow Hotel at about 9.30 am from where we will drive north to Staffordshire, for lunch and a brief visit to the V&A Wedgwood Collection. The collection, begun as early as 1774, is an award-winning display of Wedgwood pottery, designs and skills of the potters and is inscribed in UNESCO's UK Memory of the World Register. In 1800, John Wedgwood (Josiah Wedgwood’s son) suggested the creation of a horticultural society – what is, today, the RHS.

We continue north to visit Little Moreton Hall, a wonderful half-timbered manor house, arranged around a rectangular cobbled courtyard and surrounded by a moat. Built for William Moreton, a prosperous Cheshire landowner, in the early 1500s, it was modified in 1610 and remained in the Moreton family, largely untouched, until 1938.

It is a short drive from Little Moreton Hall to Alderley Edge Hotel, our home for the next three nights, where we plan to be in good time to check in, relax and enjoy drinks and dinner at the hotel.

Today’s driving is approx. 195 miles/310 km

D2 Friday, 13 June

Quarry Bank & RHS Bridgewater

We start the day at nearby Quarry Bank, one of the most complete factory colonies of the Industrial Revolution. It was built in 1784 for Samuel Greg who, with his wife, Hannah Lightbody, were enlightened mill owners, providing their workers with housing, medical care and education. We get to see the mill, Greg’s neighbouring home, Quarry Bank House and its extensive garden, and the Apprentice House, where the pauper child labourers lived – enlightened is such a relative term.

After lunch, at Quarry Bank, we drive to RHS Garden Bridgewater, the Royal Horticultural Society’s fifth and latest garden. Built on the site of the now-demolished Worsley New Hall, Bridgewater opened in May 2021 to wide acclaim. It is the biggest project the RHS has ever undertaken and it’s fantastic! This will be our fifth visit to Bridgewater, and we’re very happy to bend the geography of the tour title to take you to it.

We’ll leave Bridgewater and head a little way into Manchester for supper at The Woodstock Arms in Didsbury, en route home to Alderley Edge.

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

D3 Saturday, 14 June

Arley Hall & Tatton Park

The day begins with a visit to Arley Hall to see gardens which are “amongst the finest in Europe”, so the website says! Created over the last 270 years by successive generations of the appropriately-namely Flower family, the gardens offer an unusual blend of traditional design and modernity; it is a garden rich in atmosphere, interest and vitality. For fans of the hit BBC series Peaky Blinders, Arley Hall doubled as Tommy Shelby’s home.

We’ll have lunch at Arley Hall before heading east to Tatton Park for the rest of the day. One of Cheshire’s great historic estates, in 1795, under the Egerton family, Tatton Park measured over 250,000 acres or over 1,000 km². It was the last Lord Egerton who, on his death in 1958, left the estate to the National Trust. Restored to their former glory in the early 2000s, the 50-acre/20-ha gardens offer several distinct areas, including a Japanese Garden, Fernery, Kitchen Garden and Tower Garden.

More than enough to keep us going until we return to our hotel for dinner.

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

D4 Sunday, 15 June

Port Sunlight & Ness Botanic

We’ll spend the day on the Wirral, the peninsula separating the rivers Dee and Mersey, starting with a visit to Port Sunlight, the village, created from 1888 onwards to house workers at Lever Brothers soap factory. Arguably the finest surviving example of early urban planning in the UK, we’ll have coffee at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, visit the galleries and take a stroll around the village.

Then to Ness Botanic Garden for lunch and our inaugural visit to these extensive gardens.

The gardens were started by Arthur Kilpin Bulley, one of the greatest sponsors of plant collectors in the 20th century. He bought farmland in Ness and sponsored plant-hunting expeditions, for plants new to British gardens, for a commercial seed and nursery he had established. On his death, his daughter, Lois, gifted the garden to the University of Liverpool to secure its future and continue her father’s love of horticulture.

We’ll leave the Wirral and drive to Goldstone Hall Hotel, our home for the next three nights, where we plan to be in good time to check in, relax and enjoy drinks and dinner at the hotel.

Today’s driving is approx. 110 miles/175 km

D5 Monday, 16 June

David Austin Roses & Windy Ridge

Our day starts amidst the fragrance of roses at the world-famous rose grower and breeder, David Austin Roses, where we have the whole morning to take in the spectacle of their display garden, seek expert advice, indulge in a little retail therapy and weep at the range of roses for sale in the sales area!

After an early lunch, at David Austin, we’ll visit Ironbridge, to walk across the world’s first iron bridge, before visiting Windy Ridge, George and Fiona Chancellor's garden in Little Wenlock. Created over the past 35 years, Windy Ridge is a lesson in what can be achieved with good design in a less-than-one-acre garden. On a scale most of us can more easily associate with, this award-winning garden is planted with over 1000 species and feels much larger than it is.

We’ll end the day with a visit to Shrewsbury, Shropshire’s County Town, for a brief exploration and dinner at The Lion & Pheasant.

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

D6 Tuesday, 17 June

Hodnet Hall & Wollerton Old Hall

We have booked private visits to two superb gardens barely two miles apart, neither of them ten miles from our hotel. Starting at Hodnet Hall, the family home of the Heber-Percys, the layout of the gardens is largely the work of the present owner's father in the 1920s. He set out to create a union between the old grounds of an earlier mansion and the newer gardens of the present house. The result is over 60 acres/24 ha of brilliantly coloured flowers, magnificent trees, sweeping lawns and a chain of ornamental pools running along the garden valley, a veritable haven for wildlife.

We’ll have lunch across the road, at The Bear Inn, before our second private visit, to the acclaimed gardens at Wollerton Old Hall, the 16th-century childhood home of owner, Lesley Jenkins. The 4 acre/1.6 ha garden surrounds the hall and is in the English Garden tradition, with strong echoes of the Arts and Crafts movement, though with a degree of formality demanded by a property of such great age. It is bursting with design ideas and there is much in the garden for the plant enthusiast, including significant collections of clematis, salvias, phlox and roses.

Finally, we return to Goldstone Hall for a tour of its splendid garden, a relaxing evening and our end-of-tour dinner.

Today’s driving is approx. 25 miles/40 km

D7 Wednesday, 18 June

Coton Manor & Heathrow

We haven’t visited Coton Manor for some years and it’s high time we did. It’s a highly acclaimed and well-liked garden and, like Hodnet, it was laid out in the 1920s by the present owner’s grandparents. The 17th-century manor house is the focus of the ten-acre garden which surrounds it, and the garden makes the best use of its natural setting and attractive views.

They have a decent cafe where we’ll have lunch before returning to the Sheraton Heathrow Hotel where the tour ends and where we plan to be in time for evening flights home. If you are staying in the UK and don't wish to return to London or Heathrow, 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. 180 miles/290 km