The Easter holidays already seem long gone. The last few weeks have flown by and it’s lovely to be busy with plenty of things to do. However I wanted to write a little about our visit to Hidcote Manor Garden in Gloucestershire. This was a stop off on the long journey home from a few days in Ironbridge. We needed somewhere to stop and enjoy our picnic and this seemed a good place to stop, especially as we could use our lifetime National Trust cards to get in.

{Exploring} Hidcote Manor Garden

Hidcote is an Arts and Crafts-inspired garden with intricately designed outdoor spaces in the rolling Cotswold hills near Chipping Campden. As I’ve got older I appreciate gardens more, so was happy to visit. As well as the gardens you can visit some of the downstairs rooms of the Manor, there is also a cafe, bookshop and shop. Despite visiting in early April the gardens were already looking spectacular.

The garden was divided into lots of zones or outdoor rooms. The world famous garden was created by the celebrated horticulturalist and plant collector, Major Lawrence Johnston (he sounds like he was a bit of a character). He travelled extensively to collect plants he brought back to Hidcote.

There is a central axis running from east to west and another north to south, forming corridors off which the garden rooms can be found, each one with its own character and personality. We loved the mixture of formal and formal areas.

The Beech allee in the Spring sunshine.

Although this was the first garden only property gifted to the National Trust we were able to visit some of the downstairs room inside the Manor. There was an amazing display of the work of botanical and embroidery artist Olga Prinku. Her work combines dried and preserved flowers and other natural materials with tulle fabric, to create motifs inspired by nature. Nature’s Tapestry is open until the 30th September.

We didn’t have time to stop for tea but we did browse in the chapel bookshop and gift shop, picking up seeds to grow back at home.

The only thing we didn’t enjoy about our visit was that dogs weren’t allowed in the gardens. This really annoys me when we have paid for lifetime membership. Our little pup is no problem and enjoys a National Trust as much as we do. Hopefully this policy will change soon as there is no reason why dogs should not be allowed on leads.