Tours and Vacations for Women

English Gardens

The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden, is a style of "landscape" garden which emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal, symmetrical jardin à la française of the 17th century as the principal gardening style of Europe. The English garden presented an idealized view of nature, usually including a lake, sweeps of gently rolling lawns set against groves of trees, and recreations of classical temples, Gothic ruins, bridges, and other picturesque architecture, designed to recreate an idyllic pastoral landscape. By the end of the 18th century the English garden was being imitated by the French landscape garden, and as far away as St. Petersburg, Russia, in Pavlovsk, the gardens of the future Emperor Paul. It also had a major influence on the form of the public parks and gardens which appeared around the world in the 19th century. The English landscape garden was usually centered on the English country house.

The predecessors of the landscape garden in England were the great parks created by Sir John Vanbrugh (1664–1726) and Nicholas Hawksmoor at Castle Howard (1699–1712), Blenheim Palace, and the Claremont Landscape Garden at Claremont House. These parks featured vast lawns, woods, and pieces of architecture. At the center of the composition was the house, behind which were formal and symmetrical gardens in the style of the garden à la française, with ornate carpets of floral designs and walls of hedges, decorated with statues and fountains. These gardens, modelled after the gardens of Versailles, were designed to impress visitors with their size and grandeur.

Sissinghurst Castle Garden in Kent was created by Vita Sackville-West, poet and writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. It is among the most famous gardens in England. It was bought by Sackville-West in 1930, and over the next thirty years, working with a series of notable head gardeners, she and Nicolson transformed a farmstead into one of the world's most influential gardens. The gardens contain an internationally respected plant collection, particularly the assemblage of old garden roses, and a number of plants propagated in the gardens bear names related to people connected with Sissinghurst or the name of the garden itself. The garden design is based on axial walks that open onto enclosed gardens, termed "garden rooms", one of the earliest examples of this gardening style.

The royal gardens at the private residence of Charles, Prince of Wales, Highgrove House in Gloucestershire, have been open to the public for 25 years. Previously, the late 18th century gardens of the home were overgrown and untended. When Prince Charles first moved in, he coordinated the efforts to restore the gardens and they have since flourished and now include rare trees, flowers and heirloom seeds. Current organic gardening techniques have allowed the gardens to serve also as a sustainable habitat for birds and wildlife. The gardens were designed by Charles in consultation with highly regarded gardeners like Rosemary Verey and noted naturalist Miriam Rothschild.

The Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park in Middlesex, its living collections include some of the 27,000 taxa, while the herbarium has over 8.5 million preserved plant and fungal specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. The Kew site, which has been started in 1759, can be traced back to the exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Henry, Lord Capell of Tewkesbury, consists of 330 acres of gardens and botanical glasshouses.

Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park in Middlesex, England, its living collections includes some of the 27,000 taxa curated by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, while the herbarium, which is one of the largest in the world, has over 8.5 million preserved plant and fungal specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London's top tourist attractions and is a World Heritage Site. Kew Gardens, together with the botanic gardens at Wakehurst in Sussex, are managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, an internationally important botanical research and education institution that employs over 1,100 staff and is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Kew site, which has been dated as formally starting in 1759, though it can be traced back to the exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Henry, Lord Capell of Tewkesbury, consists of 132 hectares (330 acres) of gardens and botanical glasshouses, four Grade I listed buildings, and 36 Grade II listed structures, all set in an internationally significant landscape. Kew Gardens has its own police force, Kew Constabulary, which has been in operation since 1847. In July 2003, the gardens were put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

Highgrove Garden

Highgrove is the private home of Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall. The house is not open to the public, but the Gardens are open between April and October every year to allow visitors to share TRHs’ enjoyment of this much-loved, inspirational place. The series of interlinked gardens has been created with imagination and passion over some 40 years and reflects The Prince’s natural artistic ability. Managed organically and sustainably, the gardens have become an important haven for a rich variety of flora and fauna. The gardens have been designed, as The Prince says, to “please the eye and sit in harmony with nature”. From the classic order of the Cottage Garden, to the pastoral beauty of the Wildflower Meadow, there are highlights in every season. A landscape which was once simply lawn has been transformed into a magnificent, ever-changing canvas.

The house was originally styled ‘High Grove’ and was built between 1796 and 1798 on the site of an older property. In Georgian neo-classical style, its most likely architect was Anthony Keck, a local mason. Immediately before HRH The Prince of Wales’s arrival, Highgrove was the home of Maurice Macmillan, son of Harold Macmillan, who was the British Prime Minister in the 1950s and early 1960s. The Prince of Wales came to Highgrove in 1980 and the house and gardens have since undergone many thoughtful innovations. When His Royal Highness first arrived, Highgrove possessed little more than a neglected kitchen garden, an overgrown copse, some pastureland and a few hollow oaks. Today, after the hard work of many people, an interlinked series of gardens now unfolds in a succession of personal and inspiring tableaux, each reflecting The Prince’s interests and enthusiasms. Highgrove now welcomes up to 40,000 visitors a year. Above all, Highgrove is the family home of TRHs The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.

Sissinghurst Castle Gardens

Sissinghurst Castle Garden, at Sissinghurst in the Weald of Kent in England, was created by Vita Sackville-West, poet and writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. It is among the most famous gardens in England and is designated Grade I on Historic England's register of historic parks and gardens. It was bought by Sackville-West in 1930, and over the next thirty years, working with, and later succeeded by, a series of notable head gardeners, she and Nicolson transformed a farmstead of "squalor and slovenly disorder" into one of the world's most influential gardens. Following Sackville-West's death in 1962, the estate was donated to the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty.

The gardens contain an internationally respected plant collection, particularly the assemblage of old garden roses. A number of plants propagated in the gardens bear names related to people connected with Sissinghurst or the name of the garden itself. The garden design is based on axial walks that open onto enclosed gardens, termed "garden rooms", one of the earliest examples of this gardening style. Among the individual "garden rooms", the White Garden has been particularly influential, with the horticulturalist Tony Lord describing it as "the most ambitious ... of its time, the most entrancing of its type."

The site of Sissinghurst is ancient and has been occupied since at least the Middle Ages. The present-day buildings began as a house built in the 1530s by Sir John Baker. In 1554 Sir John's daughter Cecily married Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, an ancestor of Vita Sackville-West. By the 18th century the Baker's fortunes had waned, and the house, renamed Sissinghurst Castle, was leased to the government to act as a prisoner-of-war camp during the Seven Years' War. The prisoners caused great damage and by the 19th century much of Sir Richard's house had been demolished. In the mid-19th century, the remaining buildings were in use as a workhouse, and by the 20th century Sissinghurst had declined to the status of a farmstead. In 1928 the castle was advertised for sale but remained unsold for two years.

Sackville-West was born in 1892 at Knole, the ancestral home of the Sackvilles. But for her sex, Sackville-West would have inherited Knole on the death of her father in 1928. Instead, following primogeniture, the house and the title passed to her uncle, a loss she felt deeply. In 1930, after she and Nicolson became concerned that their home Long Barn was threatened by development, Sackville-West bought Sissinghurst Castle. On purchasing Sissinghurst, Sackville-West and Nicolson inherited little more than some oak and nut trees, a quince, and a single old rose. Sackville-West planted the noisette rose 'Madame Alfred Carrière' on the south face of the South Cottage even before the deeds to the property had been signed. Nicolson was largely responsible for planning the garden design, while Sackville-West undertook the planting. Over the next thirty years, working with her head gardeners, she cultivated some two hundred varieties of roses and large numbers of other flowers and shrubs. Decades after Sackville-West and Nicolson created "a garden where none was",[5] Sissinghurst remains a major influence on horticultural thought and practice.