Hestercombe (photo copyright: Jeff Sainsbury)

The Arts and Crafts Movement, which flourished in the decades either side of 1900, had a profound impact on garden design.  Inspired by the movement's principles of simplicity, utility and craftsmanship, the leading architects, garden designers, and horticulturists of the era created an array of innovative gardens, some of which are among the finest ever made in England.   These gardens are characterized by  hedge-enclosed outdoor rooms, wonderful color themed flower borders, imaginative garden structures, and whimsical topiary  -- features that have become synonymous with the English garden style.  Led by award-winning author Judith Tankard and based in the scenic Cotswolds, the West Country, and the North Downs of Surrey, this 10-day tour takes us to some of the best and most influential gardens of the Arts and Crafts era, including Hidcote, Hestercombe, Rodmarton and Munstead Wood.  Other highlights include visits to a number of lesser known period gems and to private homes and gardens which will open especially for our group.  In all, we'll visit nineteen wonderful gardens designed by, among others, Gertrude Jekyll, William Robinson, Alfred Parsons, Thomas Mawson, Baillie Scott, Edwin Lutyens, and Avray Tipping.  Throughout the tour we'll stay in charming, historic inns and country hotels and enjoy fine food, including a memorable farewell lunch at Gravetye Manor, the former home of William Robinson.

 Land Tour Price:
10 Nights --   $4875.00
Single supplement: $975.00
Meals included: all Breakfasts (B), 1 Lunches (L), 7 Dinners (D)
Limited to: 18 members

Optional Extension: Sign up for this tour and The Great Edwardian Gardens of Harold Peto tour and receive a $500.00 discount off the combined price of both tours. 

The tour will be led by the landscape historian, Judith B. Tankard, a faculty member of Harvard University's Landscape Institute and a noted authority on early 20th century garden history, on which she has written extensively, including two books on Gertrude Jekyll.  Her newest publication, Gardens of the Arts and Crafts Movement: Reality and Imagination, features many gardens that we will visit on this tour.  Judith is also the founding editor of  Journal of the New England Garden History Society.

Tour Manager: Jeff Sainsbury


ITINERARY

May 25 (Sunday)
Board the plane for your overnight flight to London.

May 26 (Monday) -- Arrive London, Broadway, and Luggers Hall
On arrival at London Heathrow Airport, we transfer to the Lygon Arms Hotel in Broadway, a lovely small Cotswolds town, with harmonious honey-colored stone houses.  There'll be the time to rest or to sightsee on your own before we pay an afternoon visit to Luggers Hall, a short walk from the hotel.  Once the home of Alfred Parsons, a founder member of the Art Workers Guild, Luggers Hall is now owned by Red and Kay Haslam, who will show us around their delightful award-winning garden, which Parsons originally laid out at the turn of the century.   We return to the hotel and gather later for a welcome dinner.  (B,D)

May 27 (Tuesday) -- Hidcote Manor Garden and Kiftsgate Court
This morning we make the short journey to Hidcote Manor Garden, an Arts and Crafts masterpiece and one of the most influential English gardens of the 20th century.  Begun in 1907 by American Lawrence Johnston, Hidcote is arranged as a series of outdoor garden rooms, each with a different character and separated by walls and hedges.  The garden is also famous for its rare shrubs and trees and outstanding color-coordinated herbaceous borders.  After lunch, we visit nearby Kiftsgate Court, a hillside garden started in the 1920s by the current owner's grandmother with help from Lawrence Johnston.  Dramatically set on a grassy ridge, Kiftsgate has formal gardens around the house, mixed borders, and magnifcent Cotswold views stretching to Bredon and the Malvern Hills.  Return to Broadway.  (B)

May 28 (Wednesday) -- Wightwick Manor and Snowshill Manor Garden
Today's excursion takes us to Wightwick Manor, a Victorian house built and furnished by an admirer of John Ruskin and William Morris.  The attractive 17-acre garden that surrounds the house also reflects the influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement.  Laid out by Alfred Parsons in 1887, it features a formal rose garden, a zigzag yew hedge, herbaceous borders, a wild garden of streams and ponds, and borders containing plants from the gardens of such famous men as Dickens, Morris, and Tennyson.  Another Arts and Crafts garden designer, Thomas Mawson, added the stone terrace in 1910.  On returning to the Cotswolds, we pay a visit to Snowshill Manor to see the imaginatively planned outdoor rooms and terraces that owner Charles Wade created in 1920 from a design by the Arts and Craft architect and garden designer M.H Baillie Scott.  Return to Broadway.  (B)

May 29 (Thursday) -- Cotswold Farm, Rodmarton Manor, and Malmesbury
Leaving Broadway, we travel south to Cotswold Farm, a private country residence with atmospheric gardens, the terrace of which was designed in the 1930s by the celebrated architect-craftsman, Norman Jewson.  Other highlights include a richly planted walled garden, perennial borders, and fine valley views.  Following a stop for lunch in a nearby pub, we make the short drive to Rodmarton Manor, an outstanding Arts and Crafts house and garden designed by Ernest Barnsley for the family of the current owner.  We'll tour the house, richly decorated with period furnishings (most of which were made expressly for Rodmarton), then explore the garden's outdoor rooms and magnificent herbaceous borders.  We continue to the Old Bell Hotel in the historic market town of Malmesbury, our base for the next three nights.  (B,D)

May 30 (Friday) -- Dyffryn Gardens and Wyndcliffe Court
Following breakfast, we cross the Severn Bridge into Wales and travel to Dyffryn Gardens, designed in 1906 by the prolific Thomas Mawson.  One of the best surviving examples of Mawson's work, Dyffryn is laid out in series of yew-enclosed garden rooms, set amid sweeping lawns, deep herbaceous borders, rose gardens, and a rockery.  There is much else to admire at Dyffryn, as we'll discover.  In the afternoon, we visit Wyndcliffe Court, a private home on the Welsh-English border with a gem of a garden designed in the 1920s by Avray Tipping, a friend of William Robinson, Harold Peto, and Gertrude Jeykll, with whom he often worked.  Like many of Tipping's gardens, Wyndcliffe is divided into outdoor rooms and has yew hedging, formal terraces, herbaceous borders, topiary of birds and animals, and wild areas.  Return to Malmesbury.  (B,D)

Milton Lodge (photo copyright: Jeff Sainsbury)

May 31 (Saturday) -- Hestercombe and Milton Lodge
Today we venture into Somerset to see two fine early 20th century gardens.  First stop is Hestercombe, buried deep in the countryside, down narrow lanes.  This exquisite garden was designed by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll in 1904 and is regarded by many as their masterpiece.  Among the garden's many highlights are Lutyens' beautiful walls, paving, pools, and rills, and the planting, which in recent years has been restored according to Jekyll's original plans.  The estate also features a fascinating 18th century landscape garden which has been restored over the last ten years.   Following a stop for lunch, we travel to the terraced gardens at private Milton Lodge, which Alfred Parsons laid out in 1906 for the present owner's grandfather, Charles Tudway, a partner in the Parsons & Partridge garden design firm.  Return to Malmesbury.  (B,D)

June 1 (Sunday) -- Mariners and The Manor House
Two wonderful but very different gardens feature today.  First we visit the Mariners, a private country garden, with exquisite color-themed borders, a one-acre wildflower meadow, a streamside walk, and  sunken rose garden brimming with scented shrub roses and underplanted with herbaceous perennials.   This impressive garden is the work of owner Fenja Gunn, author of  The Lost Gardens of Gertrude Jekyll.  Later in the day, at the privately owned Manor House, we explore a garden that Gertrude Jekyll laid out in 1908, now beautifully and authentically restored by owners, Rosamund and John Wallinger. Mrs.Wallinger will take us on a tour of the flower-filled garden, explain Jekyll's planting theories, and tell us how she and her husband have brought the garden back to life over the last 20 years.  We continue to the Burford Bridge Hotel in Box Hill.  (B,D)

June 2 (Monday) -- Munstead Wood and Vann
We continue the Gertrude Jekyll theme this morning with a specially arranged visit to Munstead Wood, the legendary plantswoman's home for many years until her death in 1932.  The current owners, Sir Robert and Lady Clark, have restored large parts of the garden in recent years according to Jekyll's original plans.  Although less extensive than in their heyday, the gardens still demonstrate Jekyll's genius for planting and design.  Later, at nearby Vann, we'll see an enchanting woodland water garden, with stream-fed ponds, stone bridges, and lush planting supplied by Jekyll in 1911 for the family of the current owner, Mary Caroe.  Other highlights of this internationally renowned five-acre garden include a cottage garden, the yew walk, and a stone pergola designed by W.D. Caröe, the Arts and Crafts architect.  Return to Box Hill.  (B,D)

June 3 (Tuesday) -- Sissinghurst and Great Dixter
This morning we pay a visit to one of the world's outstanding gardens -- Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst Castle Garden. The quintessential English romantic garden, Sissinghurst is as close to gardening perfection as it is possible to imagine, with color-themed outdoor garden rooms, a rose garden containing many old-fashioned varieties, and a thyme lawn leading to a fragrant herb garden -- all laid out around a wonderful Elizabethan red brick tower.  In the afternoon we visit Great Dixter to see one of the most popular, exciting and constantly changing gardens in England. Created by Christopher Lloyd, one of the country’s foremost horticultural figures, the complex of gardens at Great Dixter surround a group of medieval buildings, including the house where Lloyd was born and lived until his recent death. There is a wide variety of interest from yew topiary, carpets of meadow flowers, colorful mixed borders (including the famous Long Border), natural ponds, a formal pool, and the exuberant Exotic Garden.  Return to Box Hill. (B,D)

Gravetye Manor (photo copyright: Judith B. Tankard)

June 4 (Wednesday) -- Charleston and Gravetye Manor
An early start this morning for our excursion to East Sussex, where we'll visit Charleston Farmhouse, the country retreat of writers, artists, and intellectuals collectively known as the Bloomsbury set.  Inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and other members of the group created an idiosyncratic walled garden which the architect Sir Peter Shepheard helped restore.  We then travel to Gravetye Manor, now a fine country house hotel, but for many years the former home of William Robinson, the hugely influential writer and gardener.   We'll enjoy a memorable gourmet lunch in Gravetye's Michelin-starred restaurant, then take a stroll around the gorgeous gardens that have been beautifully restored in accordance with Robinson's ideas.   Return to the hotel for an evening at leisure. (B,L)

June 5 (Thursday) -- Depart
This morning we make the short journey to London Heathrow Airport for the return flight home. (B)


Included in the tour price:
 -- 10 nights accommodation in inns and comfortable hotels with private bathroom
 -- tour coach throughout with P.A. system and air-conditioning
 -- entry to all gardens and sites as per the itinerary
 -- all breakfasts and other meals as indicated in the tour itinerary
 -- services of tour manager, usually Jeff Sainsbury, from London Heathrow Airport until departure of return flight
 -- tips for hotel porters, bellmen, doormen, waiters at tour meals, and sightseeing guides
 -- arrival and departure transfers (certain restrictions apply; please ask for details)
 
Not included in the tour price:
 -- airfare and airport taxes
 -- excess baggage charges
 -- personal expenditure such as room service, telephone calls, drinks, and optional activities
 -- meals other than those specified in the itinerary
 -- tour manager and driver gratuities
 -- travel insurance
 -- any other items not specifically included