Blooming marvellous: 20 British hotels with glorious gardens
Among the great glories of the United Kingdom are its private gardens, and British country house hotel gardens (and some city ones too) are no less blessed. Oddly enough, they are often hardly trumpeted on hotel websites, their owners preferring to dwell on luxurious bedrooms, splendid food and spoiling spas. But what greater pleasure is there than strolling in glorious landscaped grounds, full of specimen trees and shrubs or taking tea in a flowery arbour, with nothing but the sound of birdsong, or perhaps the clunk of croquet mallet on ball, to disturb the peace?
As well as enjoying the flowers, shrubs, lawns and views, guests of the excellent hotels described here can learn much about the history of horticulture and art of garden design. Many enthusiastic amateur gardeners return from their breaks in such hotels re-enthused, notebooks bursting with inspiring ideas to try at home.
But if hotel gardens have been undersold in the past, change is afoot and savvy hoteliers are making efforts to promote them with guided walks, gardening and cookery lessons using their produce and, where possible, walls of glass so that house and garden feel more united and the glories of the grounds are on view even when guests are tucked up by the fire in colder weather. New luxury hotels are making certain their gardens are something to be proud of before they open.
The advent of Hadspen House in Somerset later this year is sure to set the bar very high, for it is the sister hotel of Babylonstoren in the wine lands of Cape Town, which has one of the most astonishing hotel gardens in the world, and the word is that its British sibling will not disappoint.
One great change in the last decade, not seen since Victorian and Edwardian times, is the rise of the kitchen garden. No self-respecting hotel would dare to be without one these days and many really are integral to the kitchen. The collaboration between gardener and chef is crucial – together, they plan what’s on the menu depending on what is available in the kitchen garden, the orchard and more often or not, the hen houses and beehives as well. It is wonderful to see how many hotels have recently restored their fine walled kitchen gardens that had, during the 20th century, become dilapidated and disused. All the hotels described here have excellent examples and, as well as their kitchen gardens, they are worth visiting for their grounds alone.
England
Barnsley House, Gloucestershire
When it comes to hotel gardens, Barnsley House is a place of pilgrimage for many, for it was the home, from the Fifties, of renowned horticulturalist Rosemary Verey. Here she and her architectural historian husband David laid out the gardens – complex, yet natural and abundant – that established her signature style. Admire drifts of soft mauves and purples, the Laburnam Walk, knot gardens, ornamental fruits and vegetables, frog fountain and classical temple, all melting into the surrounding Cotswolds landscape. Much of the garden is visible from the chic surroundings of the hotel, including its all-white Potager restaurant.
Doubles from £244, including breakfast
Read the full review: Barnsley House
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Askham Hall, Cumbria
As at Barnsley House, if you stay you don’t pay to visit the gorgeous Grade II-listed gardens at this laid-back restaurant with rooms, a fine manor house built around a 14th-century peel tower. In a romantic and quintessentially English mixture of formal and informal, the gardens include a 230ft double herbaceous border, terraces, topiary, ponds, woodland and meadows, with views of the River Lowther. There’s an atmospheric Kitchen Garden Café and at the hotel’s Allium restaurant, the sensational food of Richard Swale is dictated by the cycle of nature in those fields and kitchen gardens.
Doubles from £150, including breakfast
Read the full review: Askham Hall
Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Oxfordshire
You need the stamina of a marathon runner to be taken on a tour of these astonishing gardens, which range from manicured lawns to Japanese fantasies, by the man himself, Raymond Blanc, such is his enthusiasm for growing the food that he cooks and his determination to reveal every element of his magnificent interconnecting spread of gardens, orchards, ponds and sculptures. These days, a gardening school justifiably complements his famous cookery school and a day-long course here makes the perfect excuse for a stay and dinner in the two Michelin-starred restaurant.
Doubles from £695, including breakfast
Read the full review: Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons
Gravetye Manor, West Sussex
It was more than 60 years ago that Peter Herbert opened this Elizabethan manor and its famous gardens as a hotel. Today the gardens, laid out by William Robinson, a pioneer of wild gardening and natural planting in the late 19th century, and restored by Tom Coward and his dedicated team, have never looked more glorious. Hotel guests can enjoy them not just when taking tea on the terrace, but also when dining inside, for the addition of a glass wall in the restaurant has melded the house with its glorious surroundings.
Doubles from £275, including breakfast
Read the full review: Gravetye Manor
The Goring, London
Extraordinary events have taken place in the garden of this London hotel: owner Jeremy Goring once turned it into an evocation of Basil’s Bar in Mustique, complete with sand and sailboats. Normally, however, it comes for first-time guests of this bastion of British hospitality as a calm and peaceful surprise – a huge swathe of lawn surrounded by flower beds right in the heart of the city. It’s especially welcome, of course, in summer, when games of croquet take place and lunch guests can gaze at the garden from the lovely flowery terrace.
Doubles from £445, including breakfast
Read the full review: The Goring
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Cliveden House, Berkshire
The National Trust gardens at Cliveden cover 376 acres of woodland, floral displays, topiary and statuary and are all yours if you stay in the historic house-turned-hotel. When it belonged to the Astor family, no one, from Churchill to Chaplin, could resist an invitation to stay and nor should you – especially if your bedroom is one of those overlooking the jaw-dropping six-acre parterre, with the Thames glinting below. A comprehensive programme of restoration has left the house looking ravishing and a match for its stately surroundings.
Doubles from £445, including breakfast
Read the full review: Cliveden House
Lindeth Fell, Cumbria
The combination of beautiful garden and majestic surrounding landscape is hard to beat at Lindeth Fell, a family-owned luxury guesthouse. The seven acres of gardens, laid out in 1907 by Thomas Mawson, melt into the landscape, against a backdrop of fells swaddling Lake Windermere. Terraces and balustrades surround the house and wisteria drips from the facade. Sit on the terrace when the rhododendrons are in full cry, and you will not want to tear yourself away.
Doubles from £160, including breakfast
Read the full review: Lindeth Fell
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Hotel Endsleigh, Devon
Arcadia. Take tea on the terrace, as did Georgiana, Duchess of Bedford, for whom the Georgian cottage orné was built, and gaze across the River Tamar with its backdrop of steep hanging woods. Here Humphry Repton, who laid out the grounds from 1814, placed hidden chimneys so that the Duchess could see smoke curling prettily into the sky. Surrounding the house, designed by Jeffry Wyatville, are wooded pleasure grounds with streams and pools, dells and ravines, cascades and crags and quaint structures including a Swiss cottage, shell house and grotto. Closer to the house is one of the longest herbaceous borders in the country and a lovely fan-shaped parterre. Olga Polizzi, owner of the charming hotel, has lovingly restored and maintained this hardly changed idyll.
Doubles from £200, including breakfast
Read the full review: Hotel Endsleigh
Congham Hall, Norfolk
The herb garden, which draws visitors from far and wide, was planted in 1982 by Christine Forecast, who turned the private Georgian house into a hotel. Its 400 varieties include rare plants such as goat’s rue, once used to treat the plague. The herbs are picked twice a day for use in the hotel restaurant. In the Secret Garden Spa, you can indulge in a rosemary muscle melt massage employing – naturally – rosemary from the garden. Guests like to wander among the herbs at dawn and dusk, when the heady aromas are at their best.
Doubles from £165, including breakfast
Read the full review: Congham Hall
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Hambleton Hall, Rutland
The garden is no exception to Hambleton Hall’s luxurious harmony, and the hotel’s owners for the past 30 years, Tim and Stefa Hart, are especially proud of their oaks, pines and a wealth of other trees and shrubs planted during their time. The grounds cover 17 acres; spring brings a mass of tulips and other bulbs, while the parterre, planted by Neil Hewertson in 1995, provides year-round pleasure, with Rutland Water glinting through its architectural plants and shrubs.
Doubles from £295, including breakfast
Read the full review: Hambleton Hall
Wales
Tyddyn Llan, Denbighshire
Bryan (Michelin-starred chef) and Susan (front of house) Webb have run this gentle and peaceful restaurant with rooms, a former shooting lodge just outside Llandrillo, for the past 17 years. An air of quiet calm prevails and the views spectacular, with the Vale of Edeyrnion’s meadows and the slopes of the Berwyn Mountains beyond flecked with sheep. Stroll in the four acres of grounds – awash with daffodils in spring – featuring specimen plants, clipped yew hedges, raised beds and rockeries, fountain and pond, and then take tea on the terrace or by the fire with Welsh cake and Bara brith.
Doubles from £190, including breakfast
Read the full review: Tyddyn Llan
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Bodysgallen Hall, Conwy
Climb the medieval tower of this fine 17th-century mansion, built as a lookout for Conwy Castle and now owned by the National Trust, and you’ll be rewarded with a panoramic view encompassing Snowdonia, Anglesey, the Great Orme and nearby Llandudno. The house has Tudor-gothic character, but the great glory here is the 200 acres of wooded parkland. Grass terraces overlook the award-winning gardens, which include a walled rose garden, rockery with cascade, terrace walk, ladies walk, lily ponds, follies and a rare 17th-century parterre of box hedges filled with herbs, laid out around a sundial.
Doubles from £190, including breakfast
Read the full review: Bodysgallen Hall
Gliffaes Country House Hotel, Powys
Standing above the River Usk is Gliffaes, built in the 1880s in Italianate style. As well as salmon and trout beats for fishing, it has fine grounds covering 33 acres, including one of the best small arboretums in Wales. The specimen trees from around the globe were planted by far-sighted Victorian collectors, and there are numbers of much older trees, shedding light on how the woodlands were used and managed in past times. The rhododendrons and azaleas are magnificent too. Guided tree walks, followed by lunch, take place on May 18 and June 1.
Doubles from £149, including breakfast
Read the full review: Gliffaes
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Ynyshir, Powys
Country house hotel Ynyshir Hall is now Ynyshir, an edgy and experimental 20-cover restaurant with rooms that has a meat-led menu and a hip-hop soundtrack dictated by chef Gareth Ward. The restaurant is Scandi-grey and minimalist and bedrooms are following suit, but one thing remains the same: the lovely grounds. Many of the beautiful specimen trees were planted by Queen Victoria, who acquired the house and used it as a place to escape, particularly enjoying the birds on the Dovey estuary, now an RSPB reserve. In the Twenties, the gardens were embellished by William Mappin, of the jewellers Mappin and Webb.
Doubles form £520, including breakfast and dinner
Read the full review: Ynyshir Restaurant and Rooms
Scotland
Inverlochy Castle, Highlands
If Queen Victoria was so taken with Ynyshir that she bought it, she was even more captivated by Inverlochy Castle, built just 10 years before her visit in 1873. After sketching and painting for a week at Lord Abinger’s home, she declared she “never saw a lovelier or more romantic spot” and it’s hard to disagree. The castle is set at the foot of Ben Nevis, girdled by a ring of Highland peaks, surrounded by beautiful landscaped grounds that perfectly complement their surroundings, including a huge swathe of lawn that runs down to the water.
Doubles from £495, including breakfast
Read the full review: Inverlochy Castle
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Greywalls, East Lothian
You don’t have to play golf to enjoy this charming hotel, set within a niblick shot of the 18th hole of Muirfield golf course. It was designed by Edward Lutyens and has stayed in the same family since 1924, with its garden attributed to Gertrude Jekyll. The garden is the perfect evocation of the Edwardian era, enclosed by mellow walls of yellow, cinnamon and pink brick topped by pantile copes of grey slate; a place to stroll among the flowers and shrubs or take tea and cucumber sandwiches. You can almost hear the rustle of silk and the click of a parasol being opened. Beautifully detailed doorways in the walls give glimpses of the countryside beyond.
Doubles from £190, including breakfast
Read the full review: Greywalls
Killiecrankie Hotel, Perthshire
A welcoming small hotel where the waiters wear tartan trews and there is direct access to the beautiful Pass of Killiecrankie. A place to unwind, not least in the four acres surrounding the 1840s whitewashed house. The front of the house faces the wooded hillside of Fonvuik across the River Garry, to the east there are lawns and wooded grounds and on the west side an abundant herbaceous border and a rose garden. “Please shut the gate to keep out the rabbits”, reads a sign on the gate. “Notice to rabbits” it goes on, “Keep Out”.
Doubles from £250, including breakfast and dinner
Read the full review: Killiecrankie Hotel
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Boath House, Highland
Step back in time at this idyllic Regency house with classically composed grounds. Inside, there’s traditional comfort and excellent food; outside, an ornamental trout lake shaded by weeping willows, streams, wild flower meadows, plus a bog garden, heaven for amphibians. The huge and beautifully laid out walled garden works for its living and produces eggs from the hens, honey from the hives, fruit from the orchard, vegetables from the potager and herbs from the parterre. Also within the walls is the new Kale Yard Café. No surprise to learn that the owner of Boath House, Wendy Matheson, is a garden designer of repute.
Doubles from £295, including breakfast
Read the full review: Boath House
Glenapp Castle, Ayrshire
Much to enjoy here: manicured lawns and pathways surrounded by exotic plants collected since Victorian times, a wooded glen, azalea pond and – pièce de résistance – the Italian Garden, designed by Gertrude Jekyll. Hidden away in the stunning walled garden is the newly restored Victorian tea room. With its sandstone battlements and crenellations, the traditionally decorated Scottish baronial castle – wood panelling, stucco ceilings, log fires, antiques, objets d’art, brass nameplates – and its romantic grounds make a fairy tale setting on the Firth of Clyde, with Ailsa Craig and the island of Arran in the distance.
Doubles from £245, including breakfast
Read the full review: Glenapp Castle
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Douneside House, Aberdeenshire
This hotel, elegantly refurbished in 2016, was once the home of the MacRobert family. When Lady MacRobert’s three sons were tragically killed before and during the Second World War, she left the house in trust, as a place of tranquillity and peace. And indeed it is, with 17 acres of botanical gardens to inspire and soothe. They include a vast range of plants and a global collection of ornamental trees. The greenhouses are full of interest year-round, the rock-pool gardens feature a parade of hosta, primula, iris and rodgersia, the walled garden supplies the restaurant and the “infinity” lawn is the perfect place to lounge.
Doubles from £154, including breakfast
Read the full review: Douneside House
