Of life’s more laborious of pursuits, gardening is high up there. Rewarding, yes, but inescapably time consuming. Why not instead, then, spend that precious time (and money) marvelling at someone else’s horticultural mastery and de-weeding efforts. The esteemed garden designer Rosemary Very’s vibrant tulip beds and Laburnum Arch at Gloucester’s Barnsley House, say, or Cliveden’s topiary maze. Britain’s hotels have some of the finest gardens in the world, from the stately, misty-deer-park standard to the soft, bucolic cottage variety, where meadow flowers tickle mottled stone walls and rose gardens lead to romantic reading benches and waterfalls.
And as violets and anemones spring into action and blossom smothers the countryside in candyfloss profusion, there has never been a better time to visit a UK hotel with a knockout garden. From the stately, Capability Brown, misty deer park standard to the soft, bucolic cottage variety where meadow flowers tickle mottled stone walls and rose gardens lead to trickling waterfalls and reading benches. These days walled garden bounty is increasingly plucked for the hotel chefs and mixologists, whether it’s grilling fresh vegetables for a hearty spring salad or infusing cocktails with botanicals. And as violets and anemones spring into action and blossom smothers the countryside in candyfloss profusion, there has never been a better time to visit a UK hotel with a knockout garden. A room with a bloom, a cacophony of bird song and all that botanical serotonin without lifting a green finger? What’s not to love.
The Newt, Somerset
Best for: the Roman villa
This grand, honey-hued pile has been eased into the 21st century with a distinctly organic (and eye-wateringly expensive) makeover, from the power couple behind South Africa’s legendary Babylonstoren. Its Georgian symmetry peers over 110 acres of soft valleys, pretty orchards, kitchen gardens, where chefs pluck fresh herbs to douse over free-range breakfasts, and plump fruit is prized from trees for English puddings-with-a-twist. The interiors even take their design cue from the gardens’ organic bounty, towing the earthy, elemental line with modern finesse. Many of the statuesque trees dotting the parkland were planted over a century ago by the pioneering plantswomen of the Hobhouse family, and later (and more experimentally), Nori and Sandra Pope. The gardens now display the mastery of Italo-French architect Patrice Taravella, who pierced his well-choreographed picture with his Parabola – a walled garden concealing an apple tree maze. This, along with a striking Roman villa garden (surrounding a recreation of a Roman villa), a kitchen garden and the glazed winter garden and other botanical wonders, is surrounded and sheltered by untamed woodland, where native species and wildlife thrive. And any West Country pile simply wouldn’t be complete without a Japanese garden, a deer park and a farm shop…
Doubles from £275 per night
Cliveden, Berkshire
Best for: Versailles-worthy landscaping
Lingering amid the Cliveden’s chandeliers, tapestries and perky fringed sofas is a sense of naughtiness – one that somehow animates all the antiquity and reaches its peak at that iconic, statue-garnished pool where the Profumo affair (one of Britain’s most scandalous affairs) began in the early 1960s. The sheer palatial heft of this Berkshire country house feels almost Versailles-grade. Best absorbed from the convivial-spin-on-stately bar or the long Italianate terrace. These are both perched like theatre seats over finely landscaped gardens, where hedges, topiary and pillars balancing on urns trace the pleasing symmetry of a bygone age and draw the eye towards a grand fountain. Beyond this lies woodland and a lazily snaking Thames, where guests can indulge in a spot of punting. Whilst views from the main house are framed by heavy silk drapes, elaborate wallpaper and dark mahogany shutters, the spa offers a lighter-fresher lens from which to spy the Profumo pool surrounded by a rush of lavender.
From £445 per night
Barnsley House, Gloucestershire
Best for: the Laburnum Arch
Deep in the Cotswolds, just outside Cirencester, lies the perfect expression of a soft English country garden. Landscaped, refined and tended to by the late revered garden designer, Rosemary Very, Barnsley House’s gardens are pure, purple, wisteria joy. Borders are ablaze with red apeldoorn tulips, a striking Laburnum Arch bursts into full bloom in spring, underplanted with tall Alliums and an abundance of Forget Me Nots paint sections of the garden in sky blue strokes. Guests checking into the Elemis spa are treated to wafts of lavender from the outdoor hydrotherapy pool. Views from the Cotswold-chic styled rooms in the 17th century manor house show the English country garden in its full glory from late spring through to harvest season, when the chefs ensure any kitchen garden treasures guide the farm-to-fork style menus. But it’s the afternoons, when the sun casts its golden breath across the reems of flowers, and the lily pads in the pond appear to glow an ethereal green, that the purest form of peace can be found.
From £490 per night
Thyme, Southrop
Best for: garden-to-plate
A botanical, foodie spirit sits front and centre at Thyme, a whimsical Cotwolds hotel where organic-styled interiors reflect the bucolic surroundings and vegetables and herbs are plucked from the resplendent English gardens for fresh, delicious menus, along with produce from the surrounding farms. The spa feels immersed in the blooms – with the heated springwater pool surrounded by lavender and weary muscles soothed with the estate’s own botanical oils. Thyme’s gardens were designed by six-time Chelsea Flower Show gold medallist, Bunny Guinness, who guided owner Caryn in creating a series of quintessentially English gardens that metamorphosize with the seasons, softly frame the scatter of renovated barns cottages, and supply flowers for the house as well as grub for the chef’s kitchen. Walled gardens and courtyards (evolving naturally from the formation of the barns) each pose as little pockets of botanical heaven – some with large terracotta pots, others with tall, colourful blooms, herbs and fruit trees– all basking in that nostalgic country light.
From £575 per night
Beaverbrook, Surrey
Best for: Italianate symmetry
This romantic Surrey Hills pile outside Leatherhead is steeped in remarkable history, with Lord Beaverbrook, the wartime cabinet minister and proprietor of the Daily Express, hosting a roll call of the 20th century’s most illustrious characters, from Rudyard Kipling to Charlie Chaplin. The garden’s Italianate gardens feel under the same spell of history – it’s easy to imagine Sir Winston Churchill admiring the borders with a cigar, or Ian Fleming ruminating over his latest strategy to outfox the enemy beside the lily pads or amid the walled gardens and lavender beds. Guests staying here can sample the gardens’ own seasonal treasures at the Garden House Restaurant, tucked just behind its year-round pantry (the walled garden), where homespun plates of citrus fruits and wasabi yoghurt or roasted parsnip with rose harissa and parsley broth scatter the tables.
From £590 per night
Askham Hall, Cumbria
Best for: fantastical topiary
Home to the earls of Lonsdale, and overseen by younger son Charlie and his girlfriend, Juno Lowther, Askham Hall’s landscaped and topiary-heavy gardens soften the austere, fortified walls, while inside, deep mullion windows frame the surrounding soft, pixie-green countryside like works of art. It stands proudly to the north of some of the Lake District’s hiking hot spots, with family portraits swapped for contemporary art and any previous formalities banished for a seriously laid back style. Doors spill out into the Grade II listed gardens filled with vibrant flowers, neighbour to meadowland, cattle-grazed fields and woodland comprising the 800-year-old Lowther Estate. Charlie has grafted passionately to leverage the estate’s own produce, from its beef to its crops and herbs (best showcased on Richard Swale’s Michelin-star tasting menus or at Askham garden café, the latter open in spring and summer).
From £150 per night
Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Oxfordshire
Best for: wispy English flowerbeds
Far from a novel foodie movement, the French have been doing farm-to-fork for years. It’s little surprise then that celebrity chef, Raymond Blanc, prioritised the kitchen garden and surrounding orchards when he first bought this Oxfordshire manor house in the 1980s, both of which now deliver all the organic delights for his lofty, creative menus. The house and restaurant feel completely immersed in acres of topiary, wisteria, purple blooms and soft, velvety lawns, all of which roll on to wildflower meadows. Raymond’s passion for garden-to-plate gastronomy is best evidenced in his gardening school – where a course leader guides students through cultivation techniques, soil properties and even growing botanicals for infusing your own cocktails. And there’s no better way to round off the exquisite two-Michelin-star menu than a turn about the garden, via the orchards supplying scrumptious puddings and the crunchy gravel paths lining beds-in-blooms,
From £900 per night
Killiecrankie House, Perthshire
Best for: traditional country garden
This whitewashed scatter of houses in the Cairngorms sits along the banks of the River Garry and amid four acres of pixie-pretty gardens. The late Henrietta Fergusson was largely responsible for their loveliness – with vibrant spongy lawns tracing statement circular flower beds and borders ablaze with country garden blooms. Their formation is unapologetically traditional, unlike the interiors that have since taken on a more brooding, Scandi-Noir tone with inky blue shades and velvet armchairs. Despite new owners, Killiecrankie’s foodie clout endures, with gastronomes travelling far and wide for a ceremonial 12-course tasting menu flaunting Scotland’s superb produce (think venison tartare with wild garlic and brambles; hand-dived scallops and Shetland mussels). And a great deal of this is prized from the kitchen gardens, the edible sections of the flower beds and the small orchard, much to the delight of the foodie pilgrims.
From £125 per night
Middleton Lodge, Yorkshire
Best for: a vast walled garden
In God’s Own Country, Middleton Lodge stands tall, watching over its prize turnips, rose gardens and rosemary. The main Georgian house is joined by a cluster of renovated stables, cottages, farmhouses and lodges, all of which are smothered in creepers and pretty flower beds and convene around two restaurants worth trekking up north for. Their kitchens are fed by a vast walled garden, one dotted with rose-spun arches to hide in (or sensibly read a book in) and endless patches of organic vegetables and herbs. Even the outdoor pool (opening in early summer) overlooks the estate’s parkland and surrounded by a tangle of plants and backed by a wall of majestic oaks and birch trees. Woodland walks (the clearly defined variety for city types) are a stomp through a carpet of bluebells in spring, then vibrant golds and russets come autumn. Walkers can return to their spruce farmhouse-style rooms to stew in large copper tubs and sip proper Yorkshire tea in front of a roaring fire.
From £235 per night
The Goring, London
Best for: an oasis of velvety lawn in the urban Belgravia jungle
Tucked along a handsome Belgravia street, The Goring is an unapologetic traditionalist with serious royal cachet and chandeliered-and-checkerboard character that soothes the Victorian expectations of American tourists. The family-run hotel also enjoys a surprisingly large garden for its prime location, not quite as large as the nearby Palace but large enough for the Goring’s resident Shetland pony, Teddy, to trot around. In summer, the afternoon teas, Pimms and theatrically step-ahead service step outside into this leafy suntrap – hoodwinking linen-and-loafered guests into believing they could just be in the countryside. Indeed, the white hydrangea, topiary and well-manicured flower beds attract a cacophony of birdsong – a soothing soundtrack for guests to wake up to from their plush four posters. Amid the sconces, heavy draped curtains and Gainsborough silk walls.
