Bourton House Garden visit

I love a garden (but not gardening myself). My son would say it’s a sign of getting old. If I’ve got a flexi day I like to get out to somewhere new, and recently was able to get to Bourton House Gardens near Moreton in Marsh.

The gardens only open Tuesday to Fridays from April to October, 10am to 5pm, so unsurprisingly was pretty quiet when I visited. 

Previously featured on BBC2’s Gardener’s World, Bourton House Garden is an award winning 3 acre garden that surrounds the 18th Century manor house. 

You pay on arrival at the Tithe Barn which is also where the cafe is during the summer months. Then you can enjoy the walk around the gardens at leisure following the map.

On entering the garden you go past some lovely succulent shelving displays, past the glasshouse and working areas, and alongside the herbaceous borders.

You can see through to the orchard where you can sit out and enjoy refreshments out the back of the barn.

There’s a lot of immaculate topiary alongside the walkways and lawns.

I loved the white garden. So clean and pretty, following on from gorgeous huge pom pom hydrangeas, with gates overlooking the fields behind.

Then walking through to the main lawn overlooked by Bourton House.  With a fiery warm border and loads of bees around the lavender along the terraces and raised walk. It was a nice place to sit and relax for a while in the sun.

The garden feels so spacious, mainly because it’s not full of visitors like so many other places are. 

I walked round to have a nosy in the Shade House which was an interesting construction, then to look at the Basket Pond which came from the Great Exhibition of 1851.

A final walk through the croquet lawn, past the fountain garden and parterre alongside the gorgeous steps up to the house. 

I spent around an hour walking around the quiet and calming gardens, enjoying the flowers and taking photos.

In addition there’s also ‘The Field’ across the road by the parking, which is a 7 acre field walk accompanied by a guide to the trees they also hand out.  I stuck with the garden itself, and that was plenty for me.

If you’re visiting, check out the times online in case they change.  Parts of the garden involve steps or raised areas, so aren’t accessible, and no dogs or picnics are allowed.

Bourton House Garden was a lovely place to spend some quiet time. It is literally just the garden, field walk, tea room and gift shop, so you’re unlikely to see many children running around compared to other larger places.

It’s only up the road from Batsford Arboretum and Sezincote House, so if you time your days right you could visit 2 on the same day.

Now to work out where my next garden visit will be.