Dorset

Mapperton Gardens » A Jacobean manor house (c1660) with an 'Italian' garden laid out in the 1920s. There are some interesting features: an orangery, a croquet lawn, topiary, fish ponds and a shrub garden. Pevsner wrote that 'there can hardly be anywhere a more enchanting manorial group than Mapperton. The garden was used for TV productions of Emma and Tom Jones. Read more on Mapperton Gardens »

Montacute House Garden » A grand Elizabethan mansion house with what used to be described as an 'Elizabethan garden'. Roy Strong corrected this opinion, decisively, in his 1979 The renaissance garden in England, stating that 'nothing could be more misleading' than to regard Montacute as an Elizabethan garden: 'Alas for Triggs and Tipping the famous north garden which we see today was laid out in the 1840s; the pond in the centre was added in the nineties. Conceivably the banking and terracing might have been Elizabethan but what may have been a mount in the middle was demolished for the fountain'. The beautiful corner pavilions are, however, Elizabethan, as is the long terrace. Read more on Montacute House Garden »

Forde Abbey Garden » A former Cistercian monastry which has became a stately home after the dissolution of the monastries (1539). From a distance, one can see the Cistercian's characteristic good taste in the placing of buildings in valleys protected by woods and hills.From the front of the house one sees a Victorian garden which draws upon the monastic remains. Forde Abbey has a large herbaceous border beside a canal, a topiary enclosure, a kitchen garden, a rock garden by Jack Drake, a very good bog garden and a fish pond made by the monks. Parts of the Abbey were kept (eg the Chapel, Dormitory and part of the Cloister) when, over the next 3 centuries it was converted into a private residence. Read more on Forde Abbey Garden »

Athelhampton House Gardens » A fifteenth century manor house with an Arts and Crafts garden, made after 1891. Designed by Reginald Blomfield and F Inigo Thomas, it is one of the best examples of the style recommended in The Formal Garden in England, which was illustrated by Thomas. The Great Court has 12 yew pyramids; a terrace with two summerhouses overlooks a canal; there is a sunken lawn with a pool. In all, there are nine garden courts. Read more on Athelhampton House Gardens »

Abbotsbury Gardens » A walled garden surrounded by a woodland garden. It is close to Chesil beach and separate from the site of the now-demolished house in which its maker, Lord Ilchester, lived. The old kitchen garden is given a sub-tropical air by the palm trees but the real attraction is the lush planting in the valley garden. It has some of the most extensive gunnera plantings in England. Read more on Abbotsbury Gardens »