Stately Home & Garden

A garden above all others - Kensington Roof Gardens

Kensington Roof Gardens is a private roof garden in London covering an incredible 65,000 sq ft on top of the former Derry & Toms building on Kensington High Street.

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The Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh - much older than Kew

Founded in 1670, the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh was the second such institution to be established in the UK, after Oxford's, which was created in 1621, and well before the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, which date from 1759. Just a mile from the city centre, it is one of Edinburgh's historic gems.

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Powderham Castle

Powderham Castle is a fortified manor house in Devon, about 6 miles south of Exeter. It is a Grade I listed building, with the building and gardens open to the public.

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Alnwick's Poison Garden - enter at your peril

Great stately homes in Britain generally have impressive gardens around them. Alnwick Castle, seat of the Duke of Northumberland, between Newcastle and the Scottish Border, has something distinctively extra in that regard - a poison garden, dedicated entirely to flora which are deadly and/or narcotic.

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Berkeley Castle - an ancient fortress where a king was murdered

Dating from the 12th century, Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire is one of England's most impressive and oldest surviving castles. It is perhps most well-known as the site of the murder of King Edward II. The castle and gardens are open to the public.

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Harvington Hall - a haven of hiding places

Harvington Hall is a 16th-century moated medieval and Elizabethan manor house in Worcestershire, famed for its extensive number of secret hiding places, used by those seeking to avoid persecution for preaching the Catholic faith.

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Hestercombe Gardens - design delights from three centuries

The beautiful Hestercombe Gardens in the Quantock Hills, near Taunton in Somerset cover some 50 acres. Three centuries of garden design history can be experienced here, from a Georgian landscape garden designed by Coplestone Warre Bampfield, to an Edwardian garden by the renowned architect Sir Edwin Lutyens and gardener Gertrude Jekyll.

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Castle Howard - opulence on a grand scale

Castle Howard is a magnificent stately home near Malton in Yorkshire, famous for its appearance in various film and television productions, and its staggering size for the home of an aristocratic family, with 145 rooms.

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Leighton Hall - Lancashire seat of a furniture family

Leighton Hall in Lancashire is the ancestral home of the world-renowned Gillow Reynolds furniture family. The house has a history going back to at least the 13th century, though the present house was built in 1759–61.

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Oxford's ancient Botanic Garden - an inspiration to scientists and writers

The University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain and one of the oldest scientific gardens in the world. The garden was founded on July 25th 1621 as a physic garden growing plants for medicinal research.

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Baddesley Clinton - moated medieval manor house in Warwickshire

Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire has been described as 'the perfect medieval manor house'. It occupies an island hemmed in on all sides by a wide moat, and has beautiful gardens as well as several secret compartments used to hide priests after the Reformation.

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Greenway - Agatha Christie's dream house in Devon

Greenway House is an estate overlooking the River Dart near Galmpton in south Devon, once the holiday home of the author Agatha Christie, who called it 'the loveliest place in the world'. It is now owned by the National Trust and open to the public.

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Kilver Court Gardens - Somerset gardens set against a striking backdrop

Kilver Court gardens in Shepton Mallet, Somerset were once the grounds of a country house. The impressive planting and waterfall are overlooked by the disused Charlton Railway Viaduct as it crosses the River Sheppey - providing a breathtaking 15-metre-high backdrop to the gardens.

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Balmoral Castle - the monarch's Aberdeenshire royal residence

Balmoral Castle has been the Scottish home of the Royal Family since it was purchased for Queen Victoria by Prince Albert in 1852. Located in Royal Deeside, Aberdeenshire, Balmoral Castle is one of two personal and private residences owned by the Royal Family, unlike the Royal Palaces (such as Buckingham Palace), that belong to the Crown.

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Stourhead - Italianate mansion and spellbinding lakeside gardens

Stourhead is a grand 2,650-acre estate at the source of the River Stour in southwest Wiltshire. The gardens around a lake are famously beautiful, as is the view across the water to an Italianate lakeside temple.

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Leighton House Museum

Leighton House Museum in Kensington is housed in one of London's most interesting Victorian villas. It is the former home of painter Sir Frederic Leighton, who had the house built and finished with an amazing Eastern-inspired interior.

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Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens

The Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens is a visitor attraction near the village of Abbotsbury, Dorset, southern England. They are Grade I listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

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Cliveden - elegant backdrop to Sixties scandal

Cliveden is an English country house and estate in Buckinghamshire in the care of the National Trust. It has a rich history of upper class decadence and entertainment, and in the early 1960s, when it was the home of the 3rd Viscount Astor, became the setting for key events of the Profumo affair - a notorious political scandal of the era.

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Bentley Priory - grand mansion where the Battle of Britain was won

Bentley Priory in Stanmore, North West London, is probably best known for its pivotal role as Headquarters of Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain in 1940. But before the Air Ministry bought Bentley Priory in 1926, the Grade II*-listed Building had been a grand private home, hotel and girls’ school.

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RHS Rosemoor - 65 acres of glorious greenery in Devon

RHS Garden Rosemoor is a public display garden run by the Royal Horticultural Society in north Devon, close to Great Torrington. Features include a rose garden with about 2,000 rose plants; an arboretum; herb, fruit and vegetable gardens; and an alpine house.

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Knebworth House, a Tudor Gothic pop sensation

Set in 250 acres of beautiful Hertfordshire countryside, including 28 acres of formal gardens, Knebworth House, has been home to the Lytton family for more than 500 years. Since 1974, the grounds have been associated with numerous major open air rock and pop concerts.

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RHS Bridgewater, Manchester - a new destination for garden lovers

The Royal Horticultural Society has recently added a fifth new garden to its group of four important sites - at Bridgewater in Salford, Manchester.

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Bramshill House - grand Jacobean estate that became Police College

Bramshill House, near Basingstoke in Hampshire, is one of the largest and most important Grade I-listed Jacobean mansions in Britain. It was built in the early 17th century by the 11th Baron Zouche of Harringworth, and is notable for its decorative architecture influenced by the Italian Renaissance.

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