Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Daily Record
Daily Record
National
Sean Murphy

The four best Scottish gardens you need to visit this summer

Getting outside in the warmer summer months is always a good idea and thankfully Scotland has some of the best scenery in the world.

However, if you enjoy your outdoors a little more contained then exploring some of the country's public gardens might be more up your street.

Filled with stunning flowers and plants, these spectacular green spaces are ideal for an afternoon meandering around them.

That's why the team at Essential Living have put together their list of some of the best in the UK using information from TripAdvisor, History Hit, Parks and Gardens and more, allowing us to score each location out of 100.

The full list (Essential Living)

They said: "With this in mind, we have trawled (gardening pun intended) the internet to see which public gardens have the best amenities, the prettiest of views, the most space to run around, dog-friendly areas and, most importantly, accessibility for disabled people.

"By taking a seed list of 66 UK cities, we crunched the numbers to see which garden centre or country house came out on top – to make exploration easier for all botanical enthusiasts this summer.

"Taking data from TripAdvisor and Great British Gardens, we found out the UK botanic gardens that were the most historic, accessible, dog-friendly, peaceful, and present on social media. From Tripadvisor we also found the number of local amenities like cafes and pubs."

In close second place was the first Scottish entry, the Royal Botanical Garden of Edinburgh, with an overall score of 71.3/100.

The EL team said: "This is the place to be for those looking for relaxation, as it scored 10/10 in this section, with 538 mentions of the word ‘peaceful’ on TripAdvisor. As well as this, it received a ranking of 9.5/10 for being ‘Instagrammable’, which was determined by 52,221 hashtags."

Glasgow Botanical Gardens, established in 1817, features several glass houses and a Crystal Art Palace. The gardens do not have their own Instagram feed, but that doesn’t make it any less picturesque, with 19.8k users tagging the location on their snaps, making it one of the most tagged gardens in the study.

Scone Palace is Scotland's third public garden to feature in the top of the study. Known as the crowning place of Scottish Kings, you can walk your furry friends across its 100 acres of land. The palace also scored 8.3/10 for its history, being established in 1580 making it one of the oldest gardens on the list.

Princess Street Gardens ranks as one of the most peaceful, with a score of 9.8/10 . It also ranks highly for being ‘Instagrammable’ with a respectable 9k hashtags for the vibrant location. It comes as one of the smaller gardens with just 29 acres, but there's still plenty to do around the town with over 500 cafes.

The best botanic gardens in the UK

  1. Royal Botanical Gardens, London

  2. Royal Botanical Gardens, Edinburgh

  3. Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire

  4. Bodnant Garden, Wales

  5. Cholmondeley Castle Gardens

  6. Glasgow Botanic Gardens

  7. Scone Palace

  8. Stourhead House and Gardens

  9. Princess Street Gardens

  10. Clyne Gardens

Don't miss the top culture and heritage stories from around Scotland. Sign up to our twice weekly Scotland Now newsletter here.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.