English Garden Tour

After a nutritious English style breakfast, we take a boat on the Thames to visit Hampton Court Palace and its majestically laid out formal gardens.

Restored by Queen Elisabeth II after the fire of 1986, it is a real insight into the lives of British royal families of the past.

Building of the palace began in 1515 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, a favourite of King Henry VIII. In the following century, King William III ordered to rebuild and expand the Palace with the intention to rival Versailles, destroying much of the Tudor palace. Work ceased in 1694, leaving the palace in two distinct contrasting architectural styles, between Tudor and Baroque even if a unity exists due to the use of pink bricks and a symmetrical, if vague, balancing of successive low wings. 

The last monarch to reside in the palace was King George II.

Hampton Court Palace’s world-famous gardens include 60 acres of spectacular formal gardens and 750 acres of parkland, all set within a loop of the River Thames.

The gardens are home to the world’s oldest puzzle maze, a record-breaking grape vine – the largest in the world as of 2005-, 3 National Plant Collections, over 1 million flowering bulbs in the Wilderness and a huge variety of wildlife, including the descendants of Henry VIII’s deer herd.

Today we visit the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, house of ”the largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world”* .

It’s a magical garden at any time of year with extensive landscaping, monuments, glasshouses and plant collections built up over centuries under the influence of master gardeners and enthusiastic Princes and Princesses of Wales.

Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park in Middlesex, England, its living collections include more than 30,000 different kinds of plants, while the herbarium, one of the largest in the world, has over seven million preserved plant specimens.

Royal Botanic Gardens is a World Heritage Site.

Hidcote is an Arts and Crafts garden in the north Cotswolds, a stone’s throw from Stratford-upon-Avon. Created by the talented American horticulturist, Major Lawrence Johnston its colourful and intricately designed outdoor ‘rooms’ separated by walls or hedges with outstanding herbaceous borders are always full of surprises.

Many of the plants found growing in the garden were collected from Johnston’s many plant hunting trips to far away places. It’s the perfect place if you’re in need of inspiration and relax for your mind.

Find a quiet spot and sit on one of the ornate benches and watch green woodpeckers search for their lunch or listen to the calls from the buzzards circling overhead.

The perfect match with Hidcote Garden is Kiftsgate Court Garden, the result of three generations of women gardeners. Its founder, Heather Muir, was a close friend of Lawrence Johnston of Hidcote and she was helped and inspired by his work. She later decided that the garden would develop organically, rather than planning everything on paper, giving the garden a distinctly feminine feel, almost in direct contrast to the more masculine lines being employed by Johnston at Hidcote.

Kiftsgate Court Garden is a beautiful stroll to end our day with upper gardens planted to give harmonious colour schemes and sheltered lower gardens providing a home for plants from warmer climes and an atmosphere of the Mediterranean.

Baddesley Clinton was built by Henry Ferrers, a lawyer, diarist and antiquarian, in the late 1500s and it remained the home of the Ferrers family for 500 years.

The house was a sanctuary not only for the Ferrers family, but also for persecuted Catholics who were hidden from priest hunters in its secret hiding places during the 1590s.

A beautiful walk through the Arden countryside, taking in the Stratford-upon-Avon canal brings us to another historical estate: ”A house to dream of, a garden to dream in.”

This is what a visitor in 1920 said about Packwood House. Homely and welcoming, in Packwood House salvaged objects and exotic pieces come together in a Jacobean meets Edwardian style.

The house was originally built in the 16th century, yet its interiors were extensively restored between the First and Second World Wars to create a fascinating 20th-century evocation of domestic Tudor architecture.

Packwood House contains a fine collection of 16th-century textiles and furniture, and the gardens have renowned herbaceous borders and a famous collection of yews.

Another fantastic day exploring historical houses and gardens.

Overlooking the river Avon on the edge of Shakespeare’s Stratford, Charlecote Park has been part of this corner of rural Warwickshire for centuries. Still the Lucy family home after 900 years, you can explore the vision of the Victorian owners George Hammond Lucy and his wife, the formidable Mary Elizabeth, who extended their home and filled it with treasures from their European travels.

Stroll through the gardens that Mary Elizabeth loved so dearly, from the formal parterre to the shady woodland garden with rare plants and borders full of colourful herbaceous planting.

We head then to Coughton Court, home of the Throckmorton family who have lived at Coughton since 1409. Coughton Court is still very much a family home with an intimate feel and the family still manage the stunning award-winning gardens which they have created. There is something for everyone to enjoy throughout the seasons and highlights include the roses in the walled garden, the herbaceous borders, ferns around the lake and the plentiful vegetable garden, orchard and bog garden.

Our last day we visit Kenilworth, Caroline hometown, and its medieval castle. Kenilworth Castle has been described by architectural historian Anthony Emery as ”the finest surviving example of a semi-royal palace of the later middle ages, significant for its scale, form and quality of workmanship”.

Walk in the footsteps of the great Tudor queen through the garden and imagine the opulence and splendour of Elizabethan Kenilworth. Lost to the world for almost 400 years, this beautifully recreated Elizabethan Garden is a haven of peace and tranquillity, full of colour and fragrant walkways.

Departure from our hotel at 9.00 to travel to Heathrow airport (approx 2 hour drive).

If you wish we can help you to extend your stay or make other independent departure arrangements. Feel free to contact us to have a chat.

We look forward to hear about your dream holiday!