Tour Code

Depart London

Return London

  HNG

Saturday

Tuesday

Price:  GBP £460 pp twin share / GBP £495 single room

NIGHTSTOP

DAY ONE

RHS Wisley/ Polesden Lacy/ Clandon Park or Nymans

We start our tour discovering these magnificent gardens the Royal Society Gardens at Wisley. Here you can not only enjoy a garden with something for everyone but a well-stocked bookshop means you have no excuse for not taking home a few ideas for remodelling your own backyard!

Polesden Lacey represents the Regency period (1820s) in our historical panorama. Sumptuous? Certainly sumptuous enough to have attracted King George VI and wife Elizabeth (our beloved and much missed Queen Mother) to spend part of their honeymoon here. In addition to the magnificent interior, there's the lovely walled rose garden to walk through.

We've a choice of either Clandon Park or neighbouring Hatchlands Park to visit next (dependent on time) and you'll have an opportunity of deciding which depending on tour participants' interests. The former is a Palladian pile, acclaimed for its collection of porcelain and tapestries. The latter boasts wonderful Robert Adam interiors and the Cobbe collection of historic keyboard instruments including those owned and played by Bach, Mahler and Chopin.

Our alternative garden is Nymans. Tour participants can decide on the day. After all, it's your tour!

Kent

DAY TWO

Chartwell / Knole / Scotney Castle & Quebec House

Does Winston Churchill home of Chartwell require an introduction? What makes it such a memorable visit is not only the view from the garden (that inspired his painting) but the fact that the interior is almost as he left it. You can almost smell the cigars!

Scotney Castle has been termed England's most romantic garden with Victorian terraces covered in a riot of coloured shrubs overlooking a 14th century moated castle.

Then to Knole. This is one of England great 'treasure houses'. Home of the Lords Sackville since 1603, the property has much to offer including Royal Stuart furnishings and a fine art collection of English masters. Knole was the birthplace of Vita Sackville-West (whose own garden creation we'll see tomorrow) and was used by Virginia Woolfe as the setting for her novel 'Orlando'. A visit here is like stepping back in time.

Kent

DAY THREE

Ingham Mote / Penhurst Place / Hever Castle

Penhurst Place is another of our finest family-owned stately homes with a history stretching back six and a half centuries. Perhaps its most memorable feature is the 60-foot high, chestnut-beamed mediaeval hall. It doesn't take much imagination to see the feast of old being enjoyed here! In addition to the fine 'objects d'art', furnishings and paintings displayed inside, Penhurst has a lovely garden, uniquely divided into 'rooms' by yew hedges.

Then to Ingham Mote, deservedly one of the most popular small gardens in the region.

Hever Castle is the jewel we leave to climax our day. Hever is many people's idea of what a 'real' castle should look like, from its gateway and courtyard to its surrounding moat. It is the most fairy-tale like. Though dating back to 1270, and being the family home of one of Henry VIII's ill-fated wives (Anne Boleyn), it also has a relatively contemporary feel provided by the Astors who took over and restored the castle in the early part of last century.

With a 30-acre garden including a unique Italian garden filled with roses and statues, there's plenty to admire here.

Kent

Sissinghurst/ Great Dixter / Bodiam Castle & Battle Abbey

Another iconic garden and house is that of Great Dixter. This is the largest half-timbered house in England but it's the garden that really grabs the attention with it topiary, wild meadows and famed Long Border.

We've an opportunity of a slight change of pace and period for today's final visits. You'll have the choice of seeing the magnificently preserved 15th century Bodiam Castle, the Abbey connected with the famed 1066 Battle of Hastings or, perhaps, Kipling's house, Batemans.

Our tour returns to London for approximately 6pm.

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