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Famous gardens

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Hyacinths in bloom in the formal garden at Anglesey Abbey, Gardens and Lode Mill, Cambridgeshire | © National Trust Images/Mike Selby

We look after the greatest collection of historic gardens and garden plants under single ownership in Europe, if not the world. They encompass more than 500 years of history and a vast range of garden styles and fashions. Learn about some of the most famous and significant gardens in our care.

Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
Anglesey Abbey is widely acknowledged as having one of the finest collections of garden statuary in the country. Amongst the classical statues, you can discover a series of specialist plant collections growing at the Abbey, many of which are named after the people and places with links to the garden.Visit Anglesey Abbey
Biddulph Grange Garden, Staffordshire
Victorian horticulturist James Bateman created this garden with plants and objects collected from, or inspired by, countries across the globe. Go on a journey at Biddulph Grange Garden to discover an Italian terrace, an Egyptian pyramid, a Himalayan glen and a Chinese-inspired garden.Visit Biddulph Grange Garden
Blickling Estate, Norfolk
Blickling has one of the only remaining gardens where you can still see the influence of Norah Lindsay, a socialite garden designer in the 1920s and 1930s who became a major influence on garden design. If you're short on time, make sure you explore the Temple, Orangery and Walled Garden.Visit Blickling Estate
Bodnant Garden, Conwy
Bodnant is well known for its plants from around the world and has more than 80 acres of gardens. Discover the grand Italianate terraces with rose gardens, lily pools, herbaceous beds and a dramatic dell. There’s varied planting all year round, including in the Winter Garden during the cooler months.Visit Bodnant Garden
Chartwell, Kent
The formal Rose Garden and the Walled Garden are horticultural highlights at Chartwell. The Rose Garden was designed by Lady Churchill and leads into the terrace lawn, which has views over the surrounding estate. The Walled Garden, also a working kitchen garden, includes walls built by Sir Winston Churchill.Visit Chartwell
Claremont Landscape Garden, Surrey
Many of the great names in landscape design history have played a part in the creation of the pleasure grounds at Claremont. Take a stroll by the serpentine lake, grotto, Belvedere Tower, Camellia Terrace and the grass amphitheatre – believed to be the largest left in Europe.Visit Claremont Landscape Garden
Cliveden, Buckinghamshire
In the 80 acres at Cliveden you will find a series of distinctive gardens positioned high above the Thames. There are vibrant floral displays in the grand Parterre, symmetry in the Long Garden, hundreds of roses in the Rose Garden, an oriental-inspired Water Garden and the Cliveden Maze.Visit Cliveden
Cragside, Northumberland
William and Margaret Armstrong engineered the landscape and experimented with plants to create a grand designer garden at Cragside. They added man-made lakes, towering North American conifers and created an enormous Rock Garden to surround their home.Visit Cragside
Two visitors looking at the flowers in the Walled Garden in April at Nymans, West Sussex
Visitors in the Walled Garden in April at Nymans, West Sussex | © National Trust Images/David Levenson
Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk
The Walled Garden at Felbrigg is one of the best kept in the country with fragrant flower borders, vegetable beds, trained fruit trees and an octagonal working dovecote. In the new Bacchus Garden, drought tolerant planting has extended the climate resilient borders for year-round access.Visit Felbrigg Hall
Ham House and Garden, Surrey
The formal Cherry Garden at Ham House features tall yew and clipped box hedges, filled with lavender and original 17th-century statues of Bacchus. The walled Kitchen Garden is one of the most productive in London and supplies home-grown produce to the Orangery café.Visit Ham House and Garden
Hidcote, Gloucestershire
Discover one of the most influential 20th-century British gardens. Hidcote is an Arts and Crafts masterpiece, nestled in a north Cotswolds hamlet. Designed as a series of outdoor rooms separated by walls and hedges, each garden is different in character and scale.Visit Hidcote
Hill Top, Cumbria
Walk through Beatrix Potter's garden at Hill Top to see her beloved children's books come to life. Wander through herbaceous borders filled with cottage-style plantings based on illustrations in her books, and spot the beehive nestled into the garden wall, just as Beatrix portrayed it in The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck.Visit Hill Top
Mottisfont, Hampshire
Ancient trees, babbling brooks and rolling lawns frame this 18th-century house, which was once a priory. The Walled Garden contains a world-famous rose collection, as well as lavender hedges and herbaceous borders. The one-acre Winter Garden is filled with rich colour and scent during the coldest months of the year.Visit Mottisfont
Mount Stewart, County Down
Mount Stewart is one of the most remarkable and distinctive gardens we care for, with rare and exotic plants flourishing in a subtropical climate. Look out for the stone pergola in the Sunk Garden and the topiary Irish harp in the Shamrock Garden, as well as colourful borders and statues in the Italian Garden.Visit Mount Stewart
Nymans, West Sussex
Discover the ruins of a medieval style manor, intimate gardens and internationally recognised plant collections at this Sussex garden created by plantsman and designer Ludwig Messel in the late 19th century. Set against a woodland backdrop, you’ll find a mix of formal and informal planting.Visit Nymans
View looking over the manicured yew hedges of the Parterre and Dahlia Walk at Biddulph, Staffordshire
The manicured yew hedges of the Parterre at Biddulph Grange Garden, Staffordshire | © National Trust Images / John Miller
Overbeck’s Garden, Devon
Tucked away on the cliffs above Salcombe lies this hidden subtropical garden. Overbeck's Garden is bursting with colour and filled with rare exotic plants. There are surprises around every corner with sweeping sea views over the estuary and coast framed by tall palm trees.Visit Overbeck’s Garden
Powis Castle and Garden, Powys
With an Italianate terrace, lavish herbaceous borders, dancing statues and grounds that date back 300 years, the garden at Powis Castle is considered to be one of Britain's best. View the garden in all its glory from high up on the terraces – the 17th-century terraced garden is one of the finest surviving examples of its kind.Visit Powis Castle and Garden
Shaw’s Corner, Hertfordshire
In 1906 the playwright George Bernard Shaw moved to this country retreat, an Edwardian former rectory, where he lived for more that 40 years. The gardens feature rolling lawns, colourful summer borders, a fruit orchard and Shaw’s iconic rotating writing hut.Visit Shaw’s Corner
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent
This world-renowned garden was created by writers Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. The garden is famed for its vibrant planting schemes and architectural planning. It’s set within the ruins of an Elizabethan house and surrounded by a rich landscape of woods, streams and farmland.Visit Sissinghurst Castle Garden
Stourhead, Wiltshire
Stourhead offers an English 18th-century view of Arcadian paradise, with hills, water and classical architecture overlaid by a collection of trees and shrubs. Its designer, Henry Hoare II, began creating it in the 1740s, inspired by his travels around Europe.Visit Stourhead
Studley Royal Water Garden at Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire
Studley Royal Water Garden is a World Heritage Site and the least altered Georgian landscape garden in England. Take in the great variety of plantings as you explore its ornamental lakes, avenues, temples, cascades and canals.Visit Studley Royal Water Garden
Trengwainton Garden, Cornwall
The garden at Trengwainton has a display of award-winning magnolias and rhododendrons. Subtropical species collected from around the world thrive in the shelter of the Walled Gardens, which include a Kitchen Garden built to the dimensions of Noah’s Ark as described in the Bible.Visit Trengwainton Garden
Wimpole, Cambridgeshire
Take a stroll through Wimpole's garden to see where famous designers 'Capability' Brown and Humphrey Repton left their mark. The 4.5-acre Walled Garden was built with handmade bricks in the 1790s by Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke, with no expense spared. Even the walls were heated to keep peaches warm during frosts.Visit Wimpole
A family in the garden in spring surrounded by daffodils at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire

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