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Please check with garden owners or their website to confirm current dates open
Garden, restaurant, shop and plant centre
1st Jan - 30 Mar; daily; 10.30 - 4.30,
31 Mar - 2 Nov; daily; 10.30 - 5.30
3 Nov - 31st Dec; daily; 10.30 - 4.30
Snowdrop season: 27th Jan - 9 March.
Last admission 30mins before closing
Areas of garden open according to season.
Pre-booked only
12 Mar - 20 Jul, 10 Sep - 2 Nov, Wed - Sun; 11am - 5pm
22 Jul - 7 Sep, Tues - Sun; 11am - 5pm.
House Guided Tours
11 Mar - 15 Jul; 9 Sep -28 Oct; Tues; 11.30am - 2.30pm
4 Nov - 23 Dec, Tues - Fri; 12noon -1.30pm
Lode Mill: 1st Jan - 28 Dec; Wed - Sun; 11am - 4pm
House open Bank Holiday Mondays. Closed Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
10 June; 10.30am - 5.30pm
Spring: Hyacinths in Formal garden and Chinodoxa and Scilla, under tree canopies
Summer: Oxeye daisies, orchids in wildflower meadow. Herbaceous borders with irises, lupins, delphiniums and salvias.
Autumn: Dahlias and magnificent autumn foliage
Winter: Winter Garden and Snowdrops
Hyacinths in Formal garden and Chinodoxa and Scilla, under tree canopies
Oxeye daisies, orchids in wildflower meadow. Herbaceous borders with irises, lupins, delphiniums and salvias.
Dahlias and magnificent autumn foliage
House, garden and mill: National Trust members Free, adult £11.90 (£10.80), child £6.30 (£5.60), family £31.20 (£28.10), family (1 adult) £19.30 (£17.30).
Garden and mill: National Trust Members Free, adult £7.30 (£6.60), child £3.90 (£3.50), family £19.60 (£17.50), family (1 adult) £12.30 (£10.90).
Dogs on lead only in car park and public footpaths.
*New telephone number in March
Redwoods Restaurant available for conferences, receptions and special occasions
Glorious Jacobean-style country house set amidst a magnificent landscape. Enjoy a full day out among rolling lawns, sweeping avenues, formal gardens, classical statuary, wildflower meadows, wildlife discovery area and a working watermill. Throughout the year changing colours and scent provide a unique experience; a true showcase for twentieth century English garden design.
One of the most remarkable gardens in England, laid out almost in its entirety in the last century it encompasses over 100 acres, including some 30 acres of mown lawn, for which the adjective 'sweeping' seems totally inadequate. The clever and subtle garden design of avenues and walks is not, as is usually the case, centred on the house, but rather is laid out in an intricate design to thrill the visitor with unexpected vistas and to show off the extraordinary collection of statuary to best advantage by leading the eye to particular pieces as they suddenly appear.
The collection of bulbs and border plants matches the extravagance of the overall design and the herbaceous borders with their patches of Delphiniums, are probably unmatched in their splendour in high summer. The rose garden was a favourite of Lord Fairhaven and features large numbers of modern roses, but it is rivalled by the Hyacinth Garden and the Dahlia Garden. These areas of bright colour contrast with the yew, box and ivy and the swathes of grass and trees to stimulate the senses.
But the garden not just a summer paradise as it shows off its snowdrops in January and February and its marvellous colours in autumn to make a visit at any time of the year well worthwhile.
The Abbey was formerly an Augustinian priory and the garden was originally laid out in the 1860s by the Rev. John Hailstone, with some fine trees, including the cedars and Weeping Lime dating from that time. Huttleston Broughton, the 1st Lord Fairhaven, bought the property in 1926 and greatly expanded the small garden he had acquired to about 90 acres, taking in nearby meadows. He was responsible for the exquisite collection of statuary which is found at every turn of the avenues and grass walks that he had had laid out. Much of the statuary dates from the 18th century, but some is much older, including a Roman urn of Egyptian porphyry. Lord Fairhaven also planted thousands of bulbs and plants, often in a mass of one species set in a particular enclosure. Sadly Dutch Elm Disease killed some 4,000 of the mature trees and the National Trust has replanted much of the garden as a result.