Devon, Dorset & Somerset

Welcome to the beating heart of the South West, welcome to Devon, Dorset and Somerset…

Three neighbouring counties sharing ancient landscapes and dramatic coastlines, each with its own distinctive character.

Famed for its spectacular coastlines, rugged cliffs, and charming fishing villages, Devon is rich with history, myths, wide-open moorland, and cream teas. Dorset, its smaller neighbour, boasts the Jurassic Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where the Earth’s history is revealed fossil by fossil, and ancient hillforts carved atop its chalk downs.

This is Wessex, Thomas Hardy country; it’s timeless.

In Somerset, mystical Glastonbury Tor contrasts strikingly with the lush, other-worldly lowlands of the Levels. It’s a different place altogether.

This tour takes you to a selection of the finest gardens in the South West, we take to the water, traverse beautiful landscapes and stop to visit other interesting places.

As always, we stay in comfy, independent hotels and eat well too.

D1 Monday, 6 July

Stourhead

Tim will collect you from the Sheraton Heathrow Hotel, immediately north of Terminal 5, Heathrow Airport, at 9.30 am. We’ll then head west to visit Stourhead, a Palladian house and world-famous landscape garden.

In 1717, Henry Hoare – son of Hoare's bank founder Sir Richard Hoare – purchased Stourton Manor. In the 1740s, his son, also Henry, inherited the estate and, with his architect Henry Flitcroft, started planning the garden at Stourhead. His vision was to create a classical landscape that would express his hopes and beliefs about the world and his journey through it. Much of his inspiration came from his Grand Tours of Europe, which exposed him to Roman classical architecture and their loyalty to the Gods. Henry’s classical temples and mystical grottoes have stood the test of time and are as magnificent today as they were almost 300 years ago.

Stourhead is about halfway and, after lunch, we’ll continue west to Devon and Mill End Hotel, our home for the next four nights, where we plan to be in good time to check in and relax before drinks and dinner at our hotel.

Today's driving is about 190 miles/300 km

D2 Tuesday, 7 July

Rosemoor & The Garden House

We start our day with a drive north, through the countryside, to RHS Rosemoor, the RHS’s Devon outpost and one of our favourite gardens. Robert Walpole bought the Rosemoor estate in 1923 for his family to use for fishing, but it was his daughter, Lady Anne Berry, who made it her home and started gardening. She travelled widely to form her collection, including to the Americas, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Japan. In 1988, Lady Anne gifted the estate to the RHS, and her garden forms the kernel of the much larger garden that we see today.

We’ll have lunch at Rosemoor before the afternoon at The Garden House. Nestled between the River Tavy and the western boundary of the Dartmoor National Park, The Garden House is the living legacy of Lionel and Katharine Fortescue, who, from the 1940s, when they bought the house, to their deaths in the 1980s, spent their lives creating a garden which remains one of the finest in Britain today.

We will have dinner at The Dartmoor Inn, and then continue home, across Dartmoor, stopping to take in the views as we head east.

Today's driving is about 100 miles/160 km

D3 Wednesday, 8 July

Coleton Fishacre & Greenway

We spend the day on and around the River Dart, starting the day at Coleton Fishacre, the elegant country retreat of the D’Oyly Cartes. Designed by Oswald Milne, a pupil of Lutyens, the Arts & Crafts house is imbued with 1920s modernity and elegance, whilst the exceptionally mild setting allows a host of exotic and tender plants to thrive in its wonderful cliff-top garden.

We leave Coleton after lunch to visit nearby Greenway, the beloved holiday home of Agatha Christie and her family. Aside from the house, there is an excellent Camellia Garden, a walled garden, a 1790s Battery on the water’s edge, built to defend against a Napoleonic invasion, and the Boathouse, which was the scene of the crime in the Poirot mystery 'Dead Man's Folly'.

From Greenway, we make our separate ways to Dartmouth, you by river on the Greenway Ferry and Tim by road, meeting up in the historic heart of Dartmouth, where Tim will meet you and take you to dinner at The Seahorse, an acclaimed fish restaurant overlooking the river.

Today's driving is about 90 miles/145 km

D4 Thursday, 9 July

Castle Drogo & Stone Lane Gardens

After three busy days and a couple of lengthy drives, today is the day we slow things down and stay close to home, starting the day high above the Teign valley at Castle Drogo. The last castle in England was designed by Edwin Lutyens for the fabulously wealthy Julius Drewe, the founder of the Home and Colonial Stores. Built between 1911 and 1930, it was acquired by the National Trust in 1974, and recently underwent a huge restoration project to repair the windows and its roof, which had leaked almost from the day it was built. There is much to see and do at Drogo, including a beautiful garden and, for those who wish to, some lovely walks.

We’ll leave Drogo for its near neighbour, Stone Lane Gardens, to explore this beautiful, tranquil woodland and water garden, home to the National Collections of Birch and Alder. Planted in a naturalistic style, the garden offers a wonderfully peaceful and spiritual environment.

Finally, we’ll spend the last part of the afternoon exploring the delights of Chagford, a charming Stannary Town that dates back to the Saxon era and known as the friendliest place on Dartmoor. Full of local, independent shops, including the most wonderful hardware store in the South West!

Dinner at our hotel.

Today's total driving is about 20 miles/30 km

D5 Friday, 10 July

Knightshayes Court & Hestercombe

We leave Devon via Knightshayes Court, a county house in the High Victorian style. Designed in the 1860s by William Burges for Sir John Heathcoat, whose grandfather had created the bobbin lace-making machine, the family’s fortunes were secure and their house, completed in 1874, overlooked the family’s lace mills. Sir John lived until 1972, at which point the property was handed to the National Trust.

No less impressive are the surrounding gardens. The Formal Garden, laid out by Edward Kemp, features a series of terraces and a rose garden, whilst the Kitchen Garden is the quintessential Victorian must-have statement piece.

After lunch, at Knightshayes, we continue east to Hestercombe, another, though earlier, grand house surrounded by beautiful gardens. Though here the emphasis is on the gardens, including the original 18th-century landscape gardens and a restored Edwin Lutyens-Gertrude Jekyll garden, said to be "one of the best Jekyll-Lutyens gardens open to the public".

We then cross the Somerset Levels to the Grange at Oborne, our home for the next three nights, where we plan to be in good time to check in and relax before drinks and dinner at the hotel.

Today's driving is about 100 miles/160 km

D6 Saturday, 11 July

Forde Abbey & Abbotsbury

We start the day in neighbouring Sherborne, with a brief exploration of its Saturday Market and an equally brief visit to the Abbey Church to see its glorious Perpendicular Gothic fan vaulting.

And then to Forde Abbey. Founded in the 12th century, the abbey flourished for four hundred years, becoming one of the richest and most learned institutions of its kind in England, until its dissolution in 1539. Fast forward to 1905 and the Roper family, whose fourth generation are now the abbey’s custodians. We will visit the house, the Mortlake Tapestries, and explore its 30 acres of wonderful garden.

We’ll find more monastic lands at Abbotsbury and its world-renowned garden. An exotic garden packed with unusual subtropical plants, the gardens are a mixture of formal and informal and are particularly noted for its Rhododendron and Hydrangea collections and its charming Victorian Garden.

We can’t visit Abbotsbury without visiting its Swannery, the world’s only managed colony of nesting Mute Swans. Essentially a larder for the medieval monks, the earliest written record of a Swanherd dates to 1393 when William Squillor, ‘Keeper of Swans’, was mentioned in records.

We will dine at The Ollerod – local vernacular for Cowslip – on our way home to The Grange.

Today's driving is about 100 miles/160 km

D7 Sunday, 12 July

Hardy’s Cottage & Athelhampton

Our final full day starts at Hardy’s Cottage, the cob and thatch cottage where Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 and from where he wrote several of his early short stories, poetry and novels, including 'Under the Greenwood Tree' and 'Far from the Madding Crowd'. The cottage garden is exactly as it ought to be, part kitchen garden, part orchard and all the right pollinator-loving cottage garden plants.

Armed with picnics, we’ll visit Lulworth Cove, a unique coastscape, formed at the end of the last Ice Age, for a RIB Ride in coastal waters to see the rock formations at Durdle Door, and then find somewhere to enjoy our lunch.

Our final visit of the day is to Athelhampton, one of England's finest Tudor Manors. Its Great Hall, built in 1485, and the angled West Wing, added in the reign of Elizabeth I, both survive, largely intact, because, like at Lavenham, there wasn’t the wealth to change them.

The gardens we see today were created in 1891 by Alfred Cart de Lafontaine and his architect Francis Inigo Thomas, and at its heart are four ‘rooms’, each a walled formal garden with a pond and water feature, the largest of which is dominated by 12 large yew pyramids, which were once part of a long-lost parterre.

We return home for our end-of-tour dinner.

Today's driving is about 80 miles/130 km

D8 Monday, 13 July

Mottisfont

We say goodbye to our rural idyll and return eastward, stopping to visit Mottisfont and its eight centuries of history. It began life in 1201 as an Augustinian priory and, like Forde Abbey, it became a residence after the dissolution and has seen many families come and go. In the 1930s, the Russells were one such family, and they created a luxurious, neoclassical setting for their new home, a place to gather a fashionable, artistic and political circle.

The park-like grounds are especially appealing, and it sports some magnificent trees, but the big draw to Mottisfont is its Walled Garden, which is packed with a world-famous collection of old-fashioned roses, the scent of which, on a warm summer’s day, is quite intoxicating.

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 by 3 pm, 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 about 120 miles/190 km