12 British Hotels With Beautiful Gardens

Some of our hotels not only offer us exquisite interiors but also the most gorgeous gardens, says Fiona Duncan.

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British Hotels With Beautiful Gardens

It’s a funny thing, but when hotels boast their facilities – spa, gym, indoor pool and so on – they rarely trumpet their immaculately kept, flower-filled grounds, however beautiful, however special. But what better way to relax and unwind than in a British garden at its magnificent best? As they say at Hotel Endsleigh, with its Humphrey Repton-designed borders and arboretum: ‘no, we don’t have a spa; a cup of tea in the garden is our spa’.

Gravetye Manor, West Sussex

William Robinson, pioneer of natural planting, created the ground-breaking and surpassingly beautiful gardens at Gravetye Manor in the late 19th century. In recent years, they have been comprehensively restored and, thanks to head gardener Tom Coward and his team, are glorious once more. Most recently the Victorian peach house has been replanted, while the magnificent walled kitchen garden is a model of its kind. The hotel is a haven of traditional comfort, good food and good taste, but it’s outside that you will most want to be.

Visit: Vowels Ln, East Grinstead RH19 4LJ. pobhotels.com

Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, A Belmond Hotel, Oxfordshire

It’s not just a hotel and restaurant: it’s another country, a land of magnificent inter-connecting gardens, ponds and sculptures: the accomplished, munificent realm of one fervent Frenchman, Raymond Blanc. There’s so much to see: vegetable garden; herb garden; mushroom valley; cloche tunnels; Japanese tea garden; orchard (over 800 apple and pear trees alone); English water garden. Only the Manoir’s food will lure you back inside.

Visit: Church Rd, Great Milton, Oxford OX44 7PD. belmond.com

Hambleton Hall, Rutland

Of all the luxury British country-house hotels that have opened in the last half-century, just one, Hambleton Hall, has remained impervious to fortune and is as fresh, magical and enveloping as the day its owners, Tim and Stefa Hart, first welcomed guests nearly 40 years ago. There’s a swimming pool, tennis court, kitchen garden and views across Hambleton’s south-facing terrace and formal gardens that take your breath away.

Visit: Ketton Rd, Oakham LE15 8TH. pobhotels.com

Teffont House, Wiltshire

What better than to hunker down than in a charming house, surrounded by the prettiest of gardens set in the heart of an idyllic but little known village far from main roads? Sitting on the lovely wide terrace at Howard’s House, in a garden protected by an undulating topiary hedge and containing a magnificent ornamental crab apple amongst other trees, the only sounds you are likely to hear are of birdsong and the knock of croquet mallet on ball. Here is the gentle English country garden at its finest.

Visit: Holt Ln, Teffont Evias, Salisbury SP3 5RJ. Note that Teffont House, previously known as Howard’s House, will reopen in 2025 after refurbishment. teffonthouse.com

The Montagu Arms, New Forest

Tucked in the heart of the New Forest, the refreshing and abundant outdoors is a given at The Montagu Arms – but this country house hotel takes it one step further with its quintessential English garden. Dating back to 1930, think winding pathways, lush green laws and vibrant flowerbeds, all designed to welcome visitors from people to bumblebees and butterflies to birds aplenty (spot wrens, house martins, collared doves, song thrushes and more here). Journey on to kind the fragrant kitchen garden with Jerusalem artichokes, radishes, beetroot, carrots, lettuce, and edible flowers; if you’re so enamoured, you can book to have drinks here amidst the greenery.

Visit: Palace Ln, Beaulieu, Brockenhurst SO42 7ZL. pobhotels.com

Askham Hall, Cumbria

The Grade II listed gardens that surround Askham Hall, previously the home of the Countess of Lowther, are so special that they are open to the public, with a Kitchen Garden Café for visitors. There are colourful terraces, rare species, a 230ft-long double herbaceous border, formal lawns, woodland, meadows and ponds. There are also absorbing and ever growing edible plants and kitchen gardens for the chefs at Askham Hall and its sister the George and Dragon at Clifton, and animal trails to see shorthorn cattle, rare breed pigs and boer goats.

Visit: Askham Hall, Askham, Penrith CA10 2PF. askhamhall.co.uk

Middlethorpe Hall & Spa, York

Just two miles from York, Middlethorpe Hall perfectly balances the ancient city with its 20 acres of gardens and parkland. The garden specialises in specimen trees, including a Cedar al Lebanon, a mature Red Oak, and a Turkey Oak, all of which remain from the original garden, accompanied by a rose garden, white garden, spring garden and kitchen gardens. The latter boasts a bounty of apples, bears, plums and peaches which you’ll find on the dessert menu inside.

Visit: Bishopthorpe Rd, York YO23 2GB. pobhotels.com

The PIG – in the Cotswolds, Cirencester

Until 2003 when it became a hotel, Barnsley House (now part of the glorious PIG group) was the home of renowned horticulturalist Rosemary Verey. Nowadays, instead of paying to visit her celebrated four-acre garden for an hour or two, you can stay in her former home, now chic and luxurious, and enjoy at leisure the richly complex yet natural and abundant garden that she created during her lifetime. There are knot gardens, ornamental fruits and vegetables and much more, all melting into the surrounding Cotswold landscape.

Visit: Barnsley, Cirencester GL7 5EE. thepighotel.com

Bodysgallen Hall, Llandudno

Snowdonia is the stunning backdrop to 200 acres of award-winning gardens and parkland, featuring follies, a walled garden, lily-pad ponds and a rare 17th century parterre of box hedges filled with colourful sweet herbs. Guests can follow a trail with their own map and discover prize specimen trees, including a marvellous Stone Pine and a Commemorative English Oak. The extensive kitchen garden is in constant use by the hotel’s chefs and you can survey all from the top of the medieval look out tower.

Visit: The Royal Welsh Way, Bodysgallen Ln, Llandudno LL30 1RS. pobhotels.com

Congham Hall, Norfolk

Anyone interested in culinary plants should make a beeline for Congham Hall, where the hotel’s renowned Herb Garden contains a collection of almost 400 varieties, including rare medicinal ones and many that can be used in cooking, including by the hotel’s chefs. Stroll around the Herb Garden (open to the public during the day) at dusk, when heady aromas scent the air. It’s also part of a trail of the Magnificent Seven local gardens.

Visit: Lynn Rd, Congham, King’s Lynn PE32 1AH. conghamhallhotel.co.uk

Whatley Manor, Malmesbury

As ecofriendly as it is beautiful, Whatley Manor’s kitchen garden is all about minimising waste, championing no-dig gardening to reduce soil erosion and nutrient leaching, and encouraging beneficial symbiotic interactions that reduce the need for pesticides. The result is a beautiful balance with the earl 20th century ornamental gardens and wildflower meadow elsewhere across the property – meaning there are gardens of all shapes and sizes to please horticulturalists across the board.

Visit: Easton Grey, Malmesbury SN16 0RB. pobhotels.com

Millgate House, North Yorkshire

‘Guests,’ say Tim Culkin and Austin Lynch, proprietors of this exceptional guesthouse ‘are like cushions. They arrive a bit pommeled but we try to send them off plumped up again.’ They also leave delighted by the beauty of the small but sensational garden, featured on Alan Tichmarsh’s Britain’s Best Gardens. In spring, many species of hellebore, snowdrop, aconite, crocus and narcissus carpet the ground. In summer, it’s awash with harmonious colour, including many varieties of rose.

Visit: 3 Millgate, Richmond DL10 4JN. millgatehouse.com

This article was originally published in C&TH’s Great British & Irish Hotels Guide 2021/22.