Classic Gardening Magazine

Gardening as it ought to be

Great garden, great pub, and maybe a garden centre too

It's the perfect combination, I'd say. You find a really lovely garden to wander around, there is a good pub with decent food within stumbling distance, and - if you are lucky - there is a garden centre on hand too - either at the garden you have visited, or nearby.

Selflessly, I have committed a large part of the next decade to finding such places, and to telling you about them. It's dirty work, but someone has to do it. Maybe you have some finds of your own that you'd like to share. If so, do let me know and I'll link to them.


You'll find links to my favourites below. Check back regularly, as I'm for ever on my quest, and the number of gardens featured will grow like bindweed over your neighbour's fence in the coming weeks.


Waterperry, Oxfordshire

Waterperry is perfect: Eight acres of contrasting gardens within a garden, plus a country house complete with frescoes, and it's own little church.. More...

Syon Park, West London


What do you want to find in a garden? To my mind, the hand of the gardener, to feel his or her character, their love of gardening and - hopefully - their sense of fun. It might be the mark of an individual mind that has shaped the garden, but it could equally be the work of many hands; a collective affinity for a piece of land.

You get that in spades at Syon Park. More


Wickham Vineyard, Hampshire

OK, a vineyard is not a garden, but it can be just as interesting to wander around. And Wickham also has a restaurant, where you can accompany Sunday lunch with one (or more) of their own wines. And, while there is no garden centre, there is a fantastic off-licence, so you can take a few bottles home. In all, Wickham is a great place to visit, even if I do have to retitle the series to A Great Vineyard, a Great Restaurant serving the vineyard's wine, and a shop for bulk buying. More...


Belmont Gardens, Kent

Belmont is on the North Downs in Kent, six miles south of Faversham. You feel like you’ve pitched up for a rather elegant house party once you’ve coasted down the winding lanes and scrunched to a halt on the stately gravel. More...

The Castle and Gardens of Mey

John o’Groats is an impostor. Its claim to fame is that it is the most northerly point on the British mainland – but it ain’t.

That distinction rightly belongs to Dunnet Head, a rather lovely spot crowned with a Robert Louis Stevenson-built lighthouse, a few miles west and over two miles further north.

But there can be no doubt that the most northern mainland garden is at The Castle of Mey