Luxury Hotel Gardens To Visit In 2022
From secret havens in the heart of London to woodland glens in Scotland, the UK hotel landscape is brimming with pockets of striking beauty. Whether you are looking for picturesque and private, wild woodland, or herbaceous kitchen gardens there is an opportunity to immerse yourself in breathtaking landscape architecture and garden design.
In our latest journal, we highlight just a few of the luxury hotel gardens to visit and stay at, this year.
The Goring Belgravia, London, England
Credit: The Goring Hotel
For those looking for a beautiful and refined oasis in the heart of London, then look no further than The Goring Hotel. Situated in Belgravia, the Goring Garden is one of London's finest - and most extensive - private gardens.
Harmonising the refreshing tranquillity of open green space with the intimacy of a secret garden, pristinely snow-topped in winter and delicately scented during the warmer months, The Goring Garden is a simply delightful secret haven. A complete redesign of the garden space in 2019 saw more than one hundred herbs planted in the garden to create homemade botanical infusions for the cocktails and provide the freshest flavours and flowers to the food.
Barnsley House, Cirencester, Cotswolds, England
Credit: Barnsley House
Created by the revered garden designer Rosemary Verey, the gardens at Barnsley House are a characteristic example of an English country garden. Rosemary Verey has designed famous gardens worldwide, including gardens for Prince Charles, Sir Elton John, and the New York Botanical Gardens.
With knot gardens, the Laburnum Walk, statues by Simon Verity and the bountiful kitchen garden growing much of the produce you'll find on the menus at Barnsley House, these magnificent and timeless gardens will make a lasting impression.
https://www.barnsleyhouse.com/
Hotel Endsleigh, Dartmoor, Devon, England
Credit: Hotel Endsleigh
Designed 200 years ago by one of the last great English landscape designers of the eighteenth century, Humphry Repton's, the gardens at Hotel Endsleigh bring together a plentitude of landscaping elements for which Repton was renowned.
Immediately around the house, formal gardens run down to the River Tamar, including a picturesque dell with little bridges crossing streams, huge Gunnera leaves, and wonderful picnic spots. Beyond the formal gardens is the arboretum, which contains unusual trees from around the world, still standing in the spots marked out with bamboo canes by Georgiana, Duchess of Bedford. Some of the trees here are national champions.
The Newt, Somerset, England
Credit: The Newt, Somerset
The gardens at The Newt have been shaped over the last 200 years by successive enthusiasts, including Margaret Hobhouse, who elevated them to a Victorian ideal, introducing colour, a greenhouse and many trees of beech, oak, pine, walnut and cedar.
Renowned garden designer Penelope Hobhouse gave Margaret's vision a new lease of life in the 1970s, followed by Nori and Sandra Pope, whose experiments with colour delighted and inspired thousands of visitors in the mid-1980s.
The latest incarnation was created by Italo-French architect Patrice Taravella, who believes a garden should be beautiful and useful. Mixing ornamental and productive elements, the gardens are a feast for the eyes and stomach. At their core sits the Parabola, a walled garden concealing an apple tree maze; at their edges, diverse woodland provides a sheltered habitat for native wildlife.
Bodysgallen Hall, Conwy, Wales
Credit: Bodysgallen Hall
The gardens at Bodysgallen Hall have been recognised for their award-winning restoration. Featured are the rare 17th-century parterre of box hedges filled with sweet-smelling herbs. The centre of which is a sundial dated 1678, natural limestone outcrops, a rockery with water cascade, walled gardens, lily pond and several follies.
There is also a formal rose garden and a number of well-established specimen trees and shrubs, including medlar and mulberry. Beyond the walled rose garden is the potager garden, which is not only ornamental with box hedge borders but produces much of the organic fruit, vegetables and herbs used at Bodysgallen Hall.
Gravetye Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex, England
Originally created by William Robinson in 1885, the gardens at Gravetye Manor are now considered one of England's most important historic gardens. 35 acres surround the Grade 1 listed manor, creating his historic gardens. The exquisite gardens include a rare 17th-century parterre of box hedges filled with sweet-scented herbs, a walled rose garden and several follies.
One of the most important elements of the design is the wild gardens. The meadows have been created to transform with the season, from snowdrops and crocuses in February to sky blue Scilla in March, through to May, where the meadow is in full bloom with native wild flowers.
https://www.gravetyemanor.co.uk/
Goldstone Hall, Market Drayton, Shropshire
Credit: Goldstone Hall, Market Drayton
The gardens of Goldstone Hall overlook the rolling tree strewn hills of the North Shropshire countryside with a mature and immaculate award-winning 5-acres of grounds and gardens.
Visitors can also enjoy features such as the double-tiered herbaceous borders including seasonal perennial planting schemes; an early flowering walled garden with nurturing micro-climate; immaculate rose garden and rose lined walkway; a sweeping lawn fringed with mature trees and shaded seating; a stunning laburnum arch, and of course the one-acre kitchen garden with raised beds and herbal walkway.
An area of 140 sq metres under an old cherry tree has recently been cultivated with wildflowers to complement the colour scheme in the double-tiered herbaceous borders.
https://goldstonehallhotel.co.uk/
Glenapp Castle, Ayrshire, Scotland
Credit: Glenapp Castle
Overlooking the Firth of Clyde, out to the iconic Ailsa Craig, the beautiful, secluded, and peaceful gardens of Glenapp Castle offer the perfect location to relax and recharge.
Set over 110 acres of private estate and local woodland, Glenapp Castle includes carefully tended lawns and pathways, surrounded by a vast array of exotic plants that have been collected since Victorian days.
The estate even boasts its own wooded glen to follow. The Castle is most famous for its Italian garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll, considered by many to be the pre-eminent garden designer of the early 20th century. She is perhaps best known for her work with Edwin Luytens.