Sunday 23rd March
Thriplow Daffodil weekend
(near Royston)
The whole village is open and car free for 2 days, full of stalls, rides and tasty treats. Hundreds of varieties of daffodils will be on display, along with dog agility shows, Morris dancing, steam engines, classic cars, traditional craft displays, live music, open gardens, street food and beer tents.
Depart 50 Weston Way 9.30 am
(just past Ridgeway, church end)
(please note new departure point)
Leave Thriplow 4.00 pm
ETA Home 5.20 pm
WFGS Members - £26
WFGS non members - £28
Tickets available January and February,
final date for tickets is on 18th February, at the meeting.
Saturday May 17th
Free RHS Trip
Entry to RHS Garden free, just coach to pay for
£22 WFGS
£24 Non WFGS
(same as last year!!)
Depart 50 Weston Way 9.00 am
(just past Ridgeway, church end)
(please note new departure point)
Tickets available March and April
Tuesday June 24th
Evening Visit to Cramden Nursery, Kingsthorpe
A self Drive visit with limited numbers
Tickets available April and May
Wednesday July 16th
Bourton House Garden and Sezincote House and Garden, Gloucestershire
Tickets available May and June
8.30 Leave 50 Weston Way (please note new departure point)
10.30 Arrive Bourton House Garden
12.45 Leave Bourton House
1.00 Arrive Sezincote
2.00 pm and 2.30 pm House Tours
4.30 Leave Sezincote
AS we will be leaving Bourton House Garden at lunchtime it is worth noting that you are not allowed to take your own food and drink in to the gardens but that Sezincote welcomes you to picnic in the grounds. Bourton House does light lunches as well as tea and cakes but Sezincote does not do lunches!
See details of both venues below or look up their websites to see pictures of these two beautiful venues.
Bourton House Garden
Award-winning 3-acre garden surrounding an 18th century Manor House and Grade I listed 16th century Tithe Barn. 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. Visitors to the garden are also invited to enjoy the walk in our seven-acre field (opened to the public in 2013) which meanders through groups of specimen trees planted in 1994/95. Beautiful to visit throughout the seasons, Bourton House Garden presents an especially magnificent late summer flourish when many gardens run their course.
Refreshments
The Cafe is fully open from May until the end of September 10.30am-4.30pm (last orders 4pm) selling hot and cold drinks, light lunches and delicious cakes. In April and October we will be running a “Pop-Up” cafe serving hot and cold drinks and a selection of homemade cakes, Please note that the cafe may close early during spells of bad weather.
Tables and chairs will be provided in the Orchard and in the Tithe Barn.
Please do not take food or drink into the Garden.
Sezincote House and Gardens
An Indian Mansion
After winding through the mighty oaks that line the long drive of this Gloucestershire garden on the edge of the Cotswolds, you see a weathered-copper onion dome straight out of India. The south front, complete with curving orangery, unfurls above a Repton landscape that has remained unchanged since the mid-19th century. 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 house was the whim of Colonel John Cockerell, grandson of the diarist Samuel Pepys, who returned to England having amassed a fortune in the East India Company. John died in 1798, three years after his return, and the estate passed to his youngest brother Charles, who had also worked for the company. He commissioned his brother Samuel, an architect, to design and build an Indian house in the Mogul style of Rajasthan, complete with minarets, peacock-tail windows, jali-work railings and pavilions.
Work began on Sezincote in 1805 and was substantially complete by 1807. Once completed, Sezincote dazzled all who came. When the Prince Regent visited in 1807, an event commemorated in a Daniell painting owned by the family, he was so impressed that he went on to change his plans for the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. Designed by John Nash, it echoed the exotic Indian style he had admired at Sezincote.
The house was hugely restored after the 2nd World War and it is thought that Sezincote is the only Mughal building surviving in Western Europe.
Gardens
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 all the exceptionally 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.
Refreshments
The Orangery Tearoom is located in the garden just past the main house. It serves tea, coffee and cake including gluten free options, but not lunch. The Tearoom has a capacity for up to 40 people at any one time.
You are welcome to picnic in the gardens. We don’t have a dedicated picnic area, but there are lots of seats throughout the garden. . We do not provide bins, so we ask all our visitors to take any rubbish away with them.
Saturday September afternoon visit to a local garden (tba)
