England: In the Footsteps of Gertrude Jekyll - 6 day 5785

We depart by coach from our pick-up points and head for our first visit, the gardens of Barrington Court. These enchanting, formal gardens, inspired by the designs of Gertrude Jekyll, are laid out in a series of walled rooms and include the White, Rose, Iris and Lily Gardens.

This morning we visit Hestercombe, one of Gertrude Jekyll and Sir Edwin Lutyens’ greatest masterpieces. The garden is home to a round pool in a circular walled garden filled with wintersweet and roses, a Dutch garden of lamb’s ears, lavender and the most beautiful orangery of the 20th century. Everywhere there are details of design and plantings from which even the most experienced gardener can learn. Here, we enjoy a tour with the head gardener.
Laster, we proceed to Knightshayes, a Grade I listed Victorian country house designed by William Burgess. The formal and woodland gardens encompass one of the most varied plant collections in the country with over 1,200 species and offer areas of interest throughout the year.

Today, after breakfast, we visit East Lambrook, near South Petherton in Somerset, recognised throughout the world as the ‘Home of English Cottage Gardening’, having been created in the 1940s, 50s and 60s by the late gardening icon, Margery Fish. Mrs Fish entered the world of gardening late in her life and as a novice she showed a quite brilliant talent for effortlessly mixing the everyday plants with the rarer species, with an eye for colour, texture and form. Her informal style of planting was unique and her work as an outstanding plantswoman, writer and journalist has made her one of the most important influences on gardening in the 20th century. Indeed, today’s mixed borders are a direct descendant of the style Margery Fish created here at East Lambrook Manor. Now visitors can continue to enjoy the gardens while also visiting the famous ‘Margery Fish Plant Nursery’, which remains a place of pilgrimage for keen plant buyers. A specially designed display bed showcases an extensive and nationally recognised collection of hardy geraniums. Our visit we includes an introductory talk with the gardening team on its history.
We later continue to Surrey to our hotel for the next three nights. Time this afternoon is at your leisure.

Today, we visit the garden at Upton Grey Manor House, which is believed to be the most comprehensive and authentic Jekyll Garden in existence – a living museum of the Jekyll design. On a 4.5-acre sloping, chalky site she designed one of her most beautiful gardens, which includes many features of a typical Jekyll Garden, but on a rather smaller scale than many of her commissions. To the north-west of the house stands the Wild Garden, planted with wildflowers such as buttercups, meadowsweet, oxlips and wood anemones, and thickets of wild roses – a perfect scene of an informal English kind. In contrast, to the south-east is the Formal Garden where, following a strict geometric outline, Jekyll designed a rose garden and typical herbaceous borders. Here colours run in drifts from cool (blues and whites) to hot (reds and oranges) and out to cool again. Outside the protective yew hedging lie the nuttery, orchard, kitchen garden, stable cottage and cottage beds. The whole is faithfully restored according to the plans that Jekyll prescribed. Here, we can also enjoy some light refreshments and home baked treats.

After breakfast we visits The Phillips Memorial where the Cloister, designed by Hugh Thackeray Turner, a local architect renowned as an exponent of the Arts and Crafts style, who also helped to found the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. The garden inside and around the Cloister was designed by Gertrude Jekyll.
Following this we visit Hatchlands, which was designed by the architect Stiff Leadbetter and decorated by Robert Adams. In 1900, the owner, Lord Rendel commissioned Gertrude Jeykll   to provide some schemes for the south and west parterres in the formal gardens which remains mainly unchanged to this day.
This evening, we head to Gravetye Manor which was home to William Robinson, one of the greatest gardeners of all time, who bought the manor in 1884 and it was his home until he died, well into his nineties in 1935. It was at Gravetye he realised many of his ideals for the creation of The English Natural Garden, of which he was a pioneer. The variety and charm of the arrangement of trees and shrubs, the landscaping, and the layout of different types of gardens at Gravetye is still his creation and memorial. Post war and until the late 1950s Gravetye’s gardens saw general neglect and became even more wild! In 1958, a pioneering hotelier, Peter Herbert came to Gravetye and established one of Britain’s first country house hotels. Over 40 years later the gardens saw enormous revival of their fortunes, and projects such as the restoration of the kitchen garden and peach house were completed. Here, we have an exquisite private dinner experience – a real highlight of the tour.

Today, following breakfast, we will visit the garden at Vann, which incorporates Gertrude Jekyll’s 1911 water garden. Other notable features include an old cottage garden, a pergola, a quarter-acre pond, mixed borders and island beds and a crinkle-crankle wall.
We later visit Loseley Park, a highlight of which is the Walled Garden, an extensive area divided into ‘rooms’, each with its own rare planting scheme and personality. The Flower Garden has a maze of pathways and secluded corners, whereas the White Garden boasts spectacular, showy, blooms with subtle, silver and grey foliage.
Following our visit here we return to our original pick-up points.