Dazzling colours, seductive scents, superb seasonal shows – Kent’s gardens are rightly renowned.
Join your private guide for a visit to some of Kent’s finest gardens and houses.
Sissinghurst Castle Gardens reflect the work of poet and writer Vita Sackville-West. Vita and her husband Harold Nicholson transformed these gardens in the 1930s. Perhaps most famous is the “White Garden”, although many people are as intrigued by this couple’s colourful lifestyle as they are by their garden’s bright blooms.
Once home to the Boleyns including King henry VIII’s second wife, Anne and mistress, Mary, Hever Castle boasts 125 acres of stunning gardens that were voted the south east’s most romantic by TV programme Gardener’s World – they even have their own rose, launched by Dame Judi Dench. House and gardens were lavishly restored to exceed their former glories by the Astor family in the early 20th century.
Great Dixter was home to the Lloyd family, with a house partly created by the famous architect Edwin Lutyens. Christopher Lloyd was a pioneering writer of articles and books on gardening, most famously on colour in the garden. A riot of colour, texture and shape, as well as a plantsman’s paradise, this garden reflects his influential legacy.
Churchill’s home Chartwell and Ightham Mote treat visitors to wonderful kitchen gardens contrasted with more formal gardens, including Lady Churchill’s beautiful rose gardens at Chartwell.
Jane Austen was a regular guest at idyllic Goodnestone Park Gardens. A treat year-round, visit its 14 tranquil acres in early-Spring and delight in a profusion of snowdrops.
Join a local Blue Badge guide to design your ideal private garden tour.
