PROGRAM
B = Breakfast L = Lunch T = Tea D = Dinner
Please note that the program is subject to changes
Day 1 19 May 2025 - Arrival London, England
Arrival in London, England, from your home destination, by your own arrangement. Check-in at Castle Hotel in Windsor.
Day 2 20 May 2025 - Windsor (B, D)
After breakfast, meet with ARNE & CARLOS in the hotel lobby, and our local guide for the tour, Marian. There will a guided tour, by coach and walking, around Windsor and the Eton area, including a visit to the Windsor Castle. There will be some free time in the afternoon to explore the beautiful town of Windsor on your own. In the evening we will enjoy a Welcome Dinner with ARNE & CARLOS, in a local reastaurant nearby.
Day 3 21 May 2025 - Windsor to Tunbridge Wells (B, D)
Depart from the hotel after a good English breakfast, and today's first stop will be Dorney Court, which is one of England’s loveliest houses and renowned for its architectural importance and historical significance. It is a Grade 1 listed building, further designated as being of outstanding architectural and historical interest. After our private house tour, there will be free time to get some lunch in a nearby cafe.
In the afternoon enroute to Tunbridge Wells, we have a real treat for you, since we will be stopping in the charming little village of Grayshott, to visit the lovely yarn store 'The Knit Lounge'! After this visit, the tour continues through the “Garden of England” en route to Tunbridge Wells in Kent, and check-in to Ashley Park Hotel, where a nice dinner awaits.
Day 4 22 May 2025 - Sissinghurst and Great Dixter (B, D)
This morning we visit Sissinghurst Castle Gardens, perhaps the most famous of Britain's romantic gardens, created by the poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West, and her husband, Sir Harold Nicholson. Utilizing the design concept of garden rooms and incorporating it with ruined castle walls makes this garden most spectacular. Lunch independently in the garden cafeteria.
Later this afternoon we visit Great Dixter, which has been the home of the Lloyd family since 1920 and where gardening writer Christopher Lloyd has continued the work started by his father, creating a series of colorful gardens.
Day 5 23 May 2025 - Charleston House and Bolney Wine Estate (B, L, D)
The modernist home and studio of the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, Charleston was a gathering point for some of the 20th century’s most radical artists, writers and thinkers known collectively as the Bloomsbury group. It is where they came together to imagine society differently, and has always been a place where art and experimental thinking are at the centre of everyday life. When Bell and Grant arrived at Charleston in 1916, the garden was filled with fruit trees and vegetables. It was redesigned in 1918 by the art critic Roger Fry, a close friend, who created the rectangular lawn, gravel paths and flowerbeds, which they filled with the flowers they loved to paint.
For lunch we are treated to a visit to Bolney Wine Estate. Enjoy a guided tour of their picturesque eighteen acre vineyards and winery, learning about the grape varieties planted in the vineyard and how they turn the climate to their advantage. There will be sparkling wine upon arrival, a tasting of five wines followed by a charcuterie lunch (yes - with wine...) After this rather heavenly experience, we return to our wonderful hotel, to relax a little before dinner.
Day 6 24 May 2025 – From the South to The Cotswolds (B, T)
Departure from the southeast this morning for a journey to the picturesque region of The Cotswolds, with a morning visit to Rousham, one of England’s most important gardens. Rousham represents the first phase of English landscape design and remains almost as its designer William Kent left it. Many of the features that delighted its 18th century visitors are still there for 21st century visitors to enjoy.
At Broughton Castle, a sumptuous afternoon tea will be served, in stately surroundings! Broughton Castle is a moated and fortified manor house near Banbury in North Oxfordshire. The Castle had strong links with the Parliamentary side in the English Civil War. Still a family home, Broughton Castle is lived in by the Fiennes family with a beautiful formal garden and park.
Our hotel for the next four nights is the charming Cotswold House Hotel in Chipping Camden. The hotel has a fabulous location in the town, and there are plenty of pubs and restaurants nearby, which we encourage you to explore on your own this evening. The hotel also has two excellent retaurants, if you prefer to stay in the hotel.
Day 7 25 May 2025 – Brockworth Court and Cirencester (B, D)
The stories behind this historic and ancient home dating back to medieval times. Brockworth Court is a former home of a succession of Priors of Llanthony Secunda in Gloucester and, more recently, to three generations of the Wiltshire family who have restored much of the house and created a stunning tapestry-style garden including a Monet Bridge and Fiji summerhouse. We visit the Prayer Room used by Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, browse the 15th century wall paintings and hear beautiful stories about what life would have been like here in times gone by.
We continue to one the most beautiful towns in Cotswold, Cirencester. This is a vibrant market town which dates back to Roman times. There will be free time to explore the town on your own and grab some lunch, maybe in one the many delightful pubs to be found here.
Day 8 26 May 2025 - Sezincote House & Garden and Moreton-in-Marsh (B, L)
After winding through the mighty oaks that line the long drive of this glorious 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 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 below.
The garden was restored in 1968 by Sir Cyril and Lady Kleinwort and their work 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.
We will have a relaxing afternoon in the charming town of Moreton-in- Marsh, where we will also have lunch together in a local restaurant. Moreton’s High Street is lined with elegant Cotswolds stone buildings which house many specialist shops, antique emporiums, tea rooms and delis.
Day 9 27 May 2025 - Hidcote Gardens and Rodmarton Manor & Garden (B, D)
This morning, following breakfast, we visit perhaps the most influential English garden design of the 20th century, Hidcote Manor. Although among the best-known gardens in Britain, Hidcote Manor still has the power to startle. It was begun before World War I by an American, Major Lawrence Johnston, who devised a type of garden that many think of as quintessentially English. It is a garden built up of separate rooms, each connected to the rest but often with blazing contrasts, laid out in a disciplined setting. Everywhere something enticing is glimpsed through an opening, across a pool or framed by a gate.
Before returning to our hotel, we will visit Rodmarton Manor. The builder of the manor was inspired by the Arts and Crafts reformers who wanted to reestablish a harmony between architect, designer and craftsman and to emphasise the importance of handcraftsmanship to the production of well-designed, affordable everyday objects with individual expression, honesty of construction, simplicity, and fitness of purpose. Inspiration would be drawn from the past but with fresh interpretation and the quality of the material being used was emphasised with designs from nature.
Farewell dinner this evening at Costwolds House Hotel.
Day 10 28 May 2025 – Departure from Chipping Camden to London (B)
After breakfast, check out and depart for London Heathrow and further onwards travel, by individual arrangements.
