Sezincote House and Gardens and Bourton House Garden

This was originally suggested by one of our members which was followed up by a Garden Society outing which included both Sezincote House and Garden and Bourton House Garden.

The two together was unanimously voted a wonderful day out.

Bourton House Garden was small but lovely, with lots of different areas all around the house which is not open to the public. A couple of hours is plenty to see it all and have a coffee and cake or light lunch in the barn cafe.

Bourton House Garden features luxuriant terraces and wide herbaceous borders with stunning plant, texture and colour combinations.

Features include a topiary walk, a White Garden and several spring-fed water features including a raised basket pond from the Great Exhibition of 1851.

You will also find a Shade House, colourful borders with unusual tender perennials and many creatively planted pots. A raised 18th century walk provides an enticing visual link to the Cotswold landscape beyond.

Sezincote was a very different but fascinating place to visit, only a mile away from Bourton House. The house has several rooms open to visit and is very different to many of the other large country houses open to visit

There is a weathered-copper onion dome straight out of India. The south front, complete with curving orangery, unfurls above a Repton landscape. The garden is blessed by a series of spring-fed pools, connected by gurgling water which eventually tumbles into the Island Pool in the valley bottom, before joining the River Evenlode below. The garden includes the canals and Irish yews in the South Garden, evocative of Moghul paradise gardens, a curving conservatory, home to many tender climbing plants, and little pavilion also in Indian style, and fine planting of the water garden, where many rare plants can be seen. Streams and pools are lined with great clumps of bog-loving plants and the stream is crossed by an Indian bridge adorned with Brahmin bulls. Ornaments include a temple to Surya the sun god, and a snake coiled around a column in the Snake Pond. 

The Orangery Tearoom serves tea, coffee and cake including gluten free options, but not lunch.

Both venues are in the Cotwolds and also very close to Batsford Arboretum.