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2022 Editor's Choice Hotels with Gardens
Best hotels with gardens in the UK
Gravetye Manor
East Grinstead
The 19th-century visionary gardener William Robinson developed his ideas on wild gardens at his Sussex home. Now eight full-time gardeners are kept busy maintaining Gravetye’s flower garden, meadows, orchards and kitchen garden.
Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons
Great Milton
Raymond Blanc’s Oxfordshire hotel is famed for its food, but also has sculpture- studded gardens, from a mushroom valley and wildflower meadow to a potager, pond and Japanese tea garden. There’s both a gardening school and a cookery school.
Gliffaes
Crickhowell
There’s everything from oaks to ornamental species, including Japanese maples and handkerchief trees, in the arboretum at this Italianate Victorian manor on the banks of the River Usk. Take a copy of the tree walk map and explore.
Ballymaloe House
Shanagarry
The Loire’s Château de Villandry was the inspiration behind Ballymaloe’s herb garden, with 70 plant varieties in its formal parterre. It’s one of a number of gardens here, including a Celtic Maze. Tours or gardening courses can be booked.
The Falcon
Northampton
With parkland designed by Capability Brown, an Italian garden, orangery, arboretum and meerkats menagerie, Castle Ashby’s gardens are pretty impressive. Guests of the Falcon get free access and can swim in the lake in front of the castle.
Goldstone Hall
Market Drayton
At the heart of the flower-filled gardens with small woodland area on this Shropshire estate is the one-acre kitchen garden with herbal walkways. One of the largest in Britain, it supplies an abundance of fresh produce for the restaurant.
Longueville Manor
St Saviour
A Victorian kitchen garden with glasshouses and potting sheds supplies Jersey Royals and other produce for the restaurant at this manor house hotel. The 18-acre estate also includes a lake, formal gardens, beehives and unspoilt woodland.
Glenapp Castle
Ballantrae
The Gulf Stream warming this part of the Scottish coast means exotic plants flourish at Glenapp, with its Italian garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll, a walled garden
with 150-foot glasshouse, and plenty of picturesque pathways in between.
Barnsley House
Cirencester
The renowned garden designer Rosemary Verey created the perfect example of an English country garden at her old home, with a laburnum walk, statues and a potager, which supplies the restaurant. There’s even a spa in this magical place.
The Pipe and Glass Inn
South Dalton
The Michelin-starred cuisine tells you they’re serious about food in James and Kate Mackenzie’s pub. Now they have added a garden, with sculptures, hidden arbours, a kitchen garden and a herbarium, where every plant is edible, even the roses.
2021 Editor's Choice Hotels with Gardens
Best hotels with gardens in the UK
Congham Hall - Summer Relaxation Three Night Special Offer
King's Lynn
Love herbs? Congham Hall is right up your patch. With 400 varieties, these beautifully laid-out herb gardens are a popular attraction in their own right. A stroll in the early morning or at dusk is a sensual delight for the eye and nose.
Bodysgallen Hall and Spa - 'Five Nights for the Price of Four' Self-Catering Special Offer
Llandudno
The formal gardens here are as aristocratic as the 17th-century house. Wander through the restored parterre and the walled and rose gardens, and admire the lily ponds and follies, before exploring the 200-acre estate.
Gravetye Manor
East Grinstead
These historic gardens were designed by William Robinson, the Irish pioneer of the wild garden, in 1885. His spirit lives on in the romantic flower garden, pergola, kitchen garden, orchard and woodland garden.
Hotel Endsleigh
Tavistock
Humphry Repton’s swan song (his last commission, in 1814), these gardens are as dreamily picturesque as Olga Polizzi’s hotel. Overlooking the Tamar are a formal garden, dell with bridges, arboretum, cottage orné and herbaceous border.
Stoberry House
Wells
Frances and Tim Meeres Young have created a lushly landscaped garden that makes the most of views of Wells Cathedral and Glastonbury Tor. Wildlife ponds, vivid planting, sculptures and night illumination make it a pleasure at all hours.
The Newt in Somerset
Castle Cary
These 800-acre gardens, comprising cultivated and landscaped areas, deer park, wild flower meadows and woodland, are no pleasing add-on to Hadspen House, but the star of the show. A dedicated museum tells the ‘Story of Gardening’.
Longueville Manor
St Saviour
A walk through this 18-acre estate, landscaped by a Victorian clergyman, offers the pleasures of a lake, kitchen garden and woods that are home to red squirrels and woodpeckers. Beyond, country lanes take you into idyllic Jersey scenery.
Hilton Park
Clones
The 600-acre grounds of this glorious
18th-century mansion form one of Ireland’s four accredited wildlife estates, where red squirrels still happily scamper. It has three lakes, a 19th-century parterre, a rose garden and woodlands.
Greywalls
Gullane
These six-acre gardens are attributed to Gertrude Jekyll and one can sense her hand in the elegant Edwardian design, with its promenades, radiating pathways, rooms and vistas, and perfectly placed spots for sun, shade and privacy.
Austwick Hall
Austwick
This restored Italianate garden, set into a hillside, is a delight throughout the year: in winter, admire the drifts of snowdrops in the woodland; in spring, displays of daffodils and bluebells. Art lovers will enjoy the sculpture trail.
2020 Editor's Choice Hotels with Gardens
Best hotels with gardens in the UK
Lindeth Fell
Bowness-on-Windermere
Gardens laid out by unsung Edwardian genius Thomas Mawson surround this B&B overlooking Lake Windermere. Here are Mawson’s trademark terraces, lawns, dry-stone walls, glorious plantings, a private tarn in grounds that melt into the landscape.
Gravetye Manor
East Grinstead
‘In setting a garden, we are painting,’ wrote William Robinson, who owned this Elizabethan manor from 1884. Disdaining Victorian formality, Robinson favoured
a natural style. Discover a wild garden, flower garden, orchard, lake and meadow in 1,000 wooded acres.
Fischer’s at Baslow Hall
Baslow
Five acres of gardens surround this Jacobean-style mansion, with clipped box and yews, cottage garden borders, an arboretum, a kitchen garden. Guests, free to wander, find hidden paths, a pond, a ‘secret’ bridge, specimen trees.
Viewmount House
Longford
Four landscaped acres surround this 17th- century mansion. Guests will discover a Japanese garden with pagoda and wisteria pergola, a blue garden, a white garden with lily pond, an orchard – and a herb garden to supply the kitchen.
Goldstone Hall
Market Drayton
Come to this Georgian manor house in summer to see the roses. Come at any time to enjoy produce from one of the UK’s largest hotel vegetable gardens, with herb walkway (more than 200 varieties), heritage vegetables and double-tiered herbaceous border.
The Pig near Bath
Pensford
A kitchen garden lies at the heart of every Pig, and this Georgian manor with deer park has the largest, with smokehouse, glasshouse, wild-flower orchard, fruit cages and hives. Enjoy home-grown produce
in the Conservatory, spa treatments in a ‘potting shed’.
Greywalls
Gullane
An Arts and Crafts ‘golf box’ designed by Edwin Lutyens stands in gardens attributed to Gertrude Jekyll, with arched gateways in high walls framing views, a sunken croquet lawn, a lavender border, a ha-ha beside Muirfield golf course.
Grove of Narberth
Narberth
Walking trails thread through 28-acre grounds at this 17th-century-cum- Victorian mansion. Explore four acres of kitchen and walled gardens, terraces, a pond, a stream, an apple orchard and fruit garden, beehives, ancient oaks, mighty beeches.
Boath House
Nairn
You can eat alfresco at the café in the walled garden of this Georgian mansion in parkland. Hens, hives, orchard, potager, glass houses and herb parterres supply the kitchen. Herbaceous borders supply flowers, the lake is stocked with trout.
The Salutation
Sandwich
‘Lutyens’s most intricate Wrenaissance house and garden ensemble’, this red brick mansion overlooks 3.7 acres of walled gardens for all seasons, a plant-lover’s paradise painstakingly restored and home to a summer opera festival.
From £90 per night
2019 Editor's Choice Hotels with Gardens
Best hotels with gardens in the UK
Congham Hall - Summer Relaxation Three Night Special Offer
King's Lynn
With more than 400 varieties of herbs, the herb garden at this Georgian country house is a great attraction for students
of all things culinary and physic, while supplying kitchen and spa. Best experienced with the heady aromas found at dawn or dusk.
Hambleton Hall - 'Celebrate a Special Occasion' Special Offer
Oakham
The owners of this former hunting lodge have created a glorious patchwork on 17 south-facing acres, with a parterre, ornamental ponds, mature trees, statues and topiary, bordering Rutland Water. Lovely in all seasons.
Bodysgallen Hall and Spa - 'Five Nights for the Price of Four' Self-Catering Special Offer
Llandudno
Guests can wander more than 200 acres of parkland, pleasure grounds and gardens at this Jacobean manor house. Garden tours take in a rare 17th-century box parterre. There are woodland walks, a lily pond, a cascade, specimen trees, a prolific walled kitchen garden.
Cliveden House - Cliveden Romance Special Offer
Taplow
Sir Charles Barry’s Italianate mansion overlooking the Thames stands amid pleasure grounds, with a yew maze, rose garden, a Japanese water garden, a parterre laid out by John Fleming, pioneer of ‘carpet bedding’ – and Britain’s most notorious swimming pool.
Goldstone Hall
Market Drayton
One of the UK’s largest hotel kitchen gardens, reclaimed from wilderness, supplies the kitchen with a wealth of produce at this Georgian manor house. There is a herb walkway, a walled garden with double-tiered herbaceous border, a riot of colour all summer long.
Hotel Endsleigh
Tavistock
Olga Polizzi’s ducal fishing lodge stands in an 18th-century arcadia laid out by Humphry Repton, with the River Tamar running through. Discover streams, pools, cascades, ravines, a shell house and grotto, and one of England’s longest herbaceous borders.
Longueville Manor
St Saviour
From 1863, the Rev Christian (aka WB) Bateman landscaped the grounds around this ancient manor house, with lake, specimen trees, kitchen garden. They remain much as he designed them – though with the addition of a pool, jogging trails and spa.
Hilton Park
Clones
Oaks grown from acorns planted in 1752 to commemorate an ancestor’s marriage, champion beeches, a kitchen garden and a rose garden created by Victorian landscaper Ninian Niven, can all be found in the park and pleasure grounds of this very special stately home.
Boath House
Nairn
An ornamental trout lake, wildflower meadow, streams and formal plantings surround this Georgian mansion. The walled garden supplies organic fruit and vegetables for the table; bees and hens do their bit for breakfast.
The Salutation
Sandwich
The ‘Secret Garden’, laid out by Lutyens, architect of this Queen Anne-style house, is revealed to the paying public and hotel residents. Designed as a series of ‘rooms’, the walled garden includes a poplar, holm oak and meadow walk, wet meadow, tropical and jungle garden.
From £90 per night
2018 Editor's Choice Hotels with Gardens
Best hotels with gardens in the UK
Talland Bay Hotel - Two Night Weekend Break Special Offer
Talland-by-Looe
Sub-tropical gardens with spectacular sea views are lent an extra touch of magic by the witty artwork that fill them at this ‘quirky’ hotel, which also features unusual furnishings within.
Bodysgallen Hall and Spa - 'Five Nights for the Price of Four' Self-Catering Special Offer
Llandudno
On the slopes of Pydew mountain, with views to Conwy Castle and the Snowdonia mountains, a 17th-century mansion in parkland and Arts and Crafts gardens, extended over centuries, is today a luxury hotel and spa.
Lords of the Manor - 'Taste of the Cotswolds' Special Offer
Upper Slaughter
The River Eye drifts through the gardens of this Cotswold stone former rectory, once home to the Witts family, rectors and then lords of Upper Slaughter, run as a hotel for the past 50 years.
Askham Hall - Autumn Three Night Special Offer
Penrith
With a topiary garden, 17th-century pele tower and French drawing room, Askham Hall sounds grand and formal; not a bit of it.
Lindeth Fell
Bowness-on-Windermere
‘B&B’ doesn’t do justice to this wisteria-clad Edwardian country house with glorious views of Windermere, seven acres of gardens and elegant interiors.
Hotel Endsleigh
Tavistock
Olga Polizzi’s cottage-orné with tall chimneys, verandas, gables and dormers, in an Arcadian landscape on the River Tamar, is full of flair – and of history.
Douneside House
Tarland
An Edwardian Scottish Baronial fantasy mansion, with crow-stepped gables and castellation, stands on the edge of the Cairngorms national park with views over the Howe of Cromar.
Barnsley House
Cirencester
Even hardened townies are seduced by the surrounds of 17th-century Barnsley House, created by visionary gardener Elizabeth Verey who moved here in the 1950s.
Boath House
Nairn
The Matheson family’s classical Regency mansion stands in 22 acres of spectacular walled and woodland gardens, so ‘the rustle of the leaves in the trees’ drowns out any traffic noise from the Aberdeen–Inverness road.
Millgate House
Richmond
This outwardly modest-looking Regency town house startles first-time visitors when they enter.
2017 Editor's Choice Gardens
Best hotels with gardens in the UK
Talland Bay Hotel - Two Night Weekend Break Special Offer
Talland-by-Looe
Sub-tropical gardens with spectacular sea views are lent an extra touch of magic by the witty artwork that fill them at this ‘quirky’ hotel, which also features unusual furnishings within.
Middlethorpe Hall & Spa - Health and Beauty Spa Break Special Offer
York
Arrive at this William and Mary house, with its lovely facade and 20 acres of gardens and parkland, and you’d think you were deep in the country; York, however, is just over a mile away.
Lindeth Fell
Bowness-on-Windermere
‘B&B’ doesn’t do justice to this wisteria-clad Edwardian country house with glorious views of Windermere, seven acres of gardens and elegant interiors.
Ballyvolane House
Fermoy
Amid gardens and parkland, with bluebell woods and trout lakes, this Georgian country house, remodelled in the 19th century, is not a hotel but a family home, say third-generation owners Justin and Jenny Green.
Goldstone Hall
Market Drayton
There are many special things about John and Sue Cushing’s red brick Georgian manor house in Shropshire dairy country, from the 'excellent food' to 'spotless, spacious and well-planned bedrooms', but the flower-filled borders and vast kitchen garden are truly remarkable.
Hotel Endsleigh
Tavistock
Olga Polizzi’s cottage-orné with tall chimneys, verandas, gables and dormers, in an Arcadian landscape on the River Tamar, is full of flair – and of history.
Barnsley House
Cirencester
Even hardened townies are seduced by the surrounds of 17th-century Barnsley House, created by visionary gardener Elizabeth Verey who moved here in the 1950s.
Grove of Narberth
Narberth
Described in 1811 as the ‘respectable old house of Grove, embosomed in trees’, the ancient seat of the Poyer family is today a luxurious country house hotel, embosomed in verdant grounds.
Austwick Hall
Austwick
From the grand hall with its flamboyant staircase to the antique-furnished bedrooms and Italianate garden, this country house B&B adds an exotic touch to a Yorkshire Dales village.
Millgate House
Richmond
This outwardly modest-looking Regency town house startles first-time visitors when they enter.
2016 Editor's Choice Gardens
Best hotels with gardens in the UK
Gravetye Manor
East Grinstead
At the end of its mile-long drive, this Elizabethan manor house with glorious gardens and superb dining is, for many guests, the ultimate country house hotel.
Lime Wood
Lyndhurst
There’s plenty of laid-back glamour at this Georgian lodge in the heart of the New Forest, with a relaxed, family-friendly vibe and well-regarded spa.
Glenapp Castle
Ballantrae
Gazing out over the Ayrshire coast to the Isle of Arran, Glenapp may be towered and turreted, but the Scottish Baronial-style hotel (Relais & Châteaux) is more luxury country house than castle.
Stone House
Rushlake Green
Stone House closed down at the end of January 2018.