EARTHLY PARADISE 2025
The great gardens, inspiring landscapes and hidden gems of West Dorset and Somerset.
Saturday May 24th - Friday May 30th 2025
A benign climate, breath-taking scenery and fertile soil have made west Dorset and neighbouring Somerset home to some of England’s most wonderful gardens (and gardeners).
This late-spring tour is a perfectly timed introduction to English gardens for guests coming from the Chelsea Flower Show (20th-24th May 2025), embracing the parks and grounds of some of the region’s greatest grand houses, with exclusive access to its very best private gardens. As well as formal gardens you will experience the wild landscapes of ancient woodlands and flower-rich meadows, at their Spring best.
The price of the tour includes your 6 night stay at Symondsbury Manor, an eclectic and comfortable private manor house with a distinguished history, as well as delicious teas and dinners prepared by Caroline and Clare, with help from Dorset’s best cake baker, Haley. As usual we will be lunching at a variety of our favourite restaurants in this beautiful corner of south-west England. It’s all included.
The tour will also feature talks and design ideas from some of the horticultural world’s most inspiring figures including Julian and Isabel Bannerman and Howard Sooley.
Sunday May 25th
After breakfast we leave for Ashington, the 16th-century home of Julian and
Isabel Bannerman, garden designers by appointment to the Prince of Wales.
In his introduction to their book Landscape of Dreams, the King described the pair as “worthy heirs of William Kent, one of the greatest and most creative of early eighteenth century designers”.
As well as the King’s gardens at Highgrove, the dynamic duo have created the famous gardens at Trematon Castle and Houghton Hall. With towering yews echoing the old church, Ashington’s inspiring gardens are in fact brand new, created from rough turf during lockdown as ‘a joyous cross between a Kate Greenaway illustration and a medieval Book of Hours, with a nod to Alice in Wonderland’.
After lunch at the Barrington Boar, a Somerset pub featured in the Michelin Guide 2023, we head to the handsome village of Martock. Here we visit Fergus and Louise Dowding’s secret garden at Yews Farm, described in Gardens Illustrated as ‘a theatrical paradise’. This is a playful garden packed with a menagerie of topiary beasts, swathes of self-sown umbellifers and a layout that entices you to explore a horticultural Wonderland.
Monday May 26th
In the morning we leave Symondsbury to visit the nearby village of Stoke Abbott, one of the most magical and secluded villages in Dorset. We’ll see the charming gardens at Manor Farm, Simon Tiffin’s own home, and picnic in the orchard, to enjoy a talk by James Crowden, the poet and author of Cider Country: How an Ancient Craft Became a Way of Life.
In the afternoon you are free to explore further this wonderful corner of west Dorset. A walk along the nearby hollow way of Hell Lane or a trip to Lyme Regis are excellent options. We end the day back in Symondsbury, at the specialist plant nursery of Charles Chesshire. As well as curating this spectacular nursery, Charles has designed gardens at Burford House, consulted at Sudeley Castle gardens and is restoring the park and gardens at Lydney Park. The nursery is also home to Charles’s extensive collection of herbaceous and itoh peonies.
Before dinner our special guest, the leading garden photographer Howard Sooley, shares his ideas and gives us advice on how to get the most from our garden photography.
Tuesday May 27th
The morning is dedicated to exploring the magnificent grounds of Forde Abbey.
Founded in the 12th century by Cistercian monks, there has been a garden at Forde Abbey for over 900 years. The formal layout was begun by Sir Francis Gwyn in the early 18th century and the following century saw the addition of walled gardens and formal Victorian borders.
For the last three generations, the gardens have been in the careful stewardship of the Roper family, and during his lifetime Geoffrey Roper planted more than 350,000 trees on the estate. The vast walled kitchen garden is a delight.
After lunch at Symondsbury Manor we visit the garden of Simon and Amanda
Mehigan at the Old Rectory in the nearby village of Netherbury.
Famed for its spring colour and drifts of naturalised tulipa sprengeri, this astounding five-acre garden is dazzling in May.
Not regularly open to the public, this is a rare opportunity to visit one of the best private gardens in west Dorset.
Wednesday May 28th
Created by the artist John Hubbard and his wife Caryl, and justly compared to Sissinghurst and Hidcote, the garden at Chilcombe is a paradise in every sense, composed of linked enclosures all hidden away in the hills behind Chesil Beach. The main walled garden is divided into a series of rooms by pleached apple trees and sculpted yew hedges. Each of these intimate spaces invites you to stop and admire the plantsmanship and love that went in to its creation.
This exclusive tour is followed by lunch overlooking the cliffs at the Seaside Boarding House.
Fabled designer Jasper Conran has given one of England’s loveliest smaller houses, Bettiscombe Manor, a garden to match, with orchards, mellow brick enclosures, and broad beds flanking an unforgettable view of the Vale, looking down to the sea.
We have an exclusive invitation to visit in the afternoon, to hear about Jasper’s design principles and the work that has gone into creating this magical English garden.
Thursday May 29th
Home to the Earl and Countess of Sandwich, Mapperton has been described as the nation’s finest manor house and its grounds are equally remarkable. The gardens feature stunning topiary, a magnificent orangery and a recently restored eighteenth century swimming pool. The planting in the borders is varied and elegant and the arboretum features a stunning collection of trees and shrubs. A talk on the history of Mapperton gardens will be given by the Countess of Sandwich.
Lunch is at the award-winning restaurant, Brassica.
After lunch we visit Farrs, the Beaminster home of the furniture maker John Makepeace and his wife Jenny, to explore two strikingly different but equally enchanting gardens. John has created a landscape of order and precision, featuring clipped monumental topiary and precisely planted grass borders. Pass through a door into the internal walled garden and you enter Jenny’s world of carefully curated colourful chaos; a true plantswoman’s paradise.
We return to Symondsbury Manor for a valedictory dinner.
PLEASE NOTE: Places on our popular tours are limited and can book up quickly.
