Hidcote Manor

Hidcote Manor Garden is generally recognised as being one of the world's great gardens, and has been very influential on garden design.

Hidcote Manor was purchased, as a farm, in 1907 by an American widowed lady, Gertrude Winthrop. She brought with her her son, Lawrence Johnstone. After serving in the First World War, Major Lawrence Johnstone devoted his time to creating the great garden at Hidcote. In 1948 the garden was given by Lawrence Johnstone to the National Trust, who are the present owners.

	The house itself looks onto a large lawn, called the Theatre Lawn.
	At the far end of the lawn is a fine set of steps leading up to a raised area, the theatre stage.

Hidcote is well known for its "outdoor rooms". This refers to the use of yew hedges to compartmentalise parts of the garden. This picture is a view looking through several of the rooms. The picture also shows two topiary birds.
This picture shows a large circular pool, surrounded by white Iceberg roses, in one circular room.

	The white border in one of the rooms.
	The central focal point of the garden is a gazebo, shown at the right of this picture. Two strong axes pass through this gazebo, in the North-South direction, and in the East-West direction.
This is the view looking through the gazebo, in the Southerly direction. The long lawn beyond, which is bordered by tall hornbeam hedges, is called the Long Walk.
This is the view from the far end of the Long Walk, looking back towards the gazebo, which can just be seen in the far distance. Behind the tall hornbeam hedge at the right, is an atmospheric woodland garden, part of which is shown below.

This picture shows the East-West axis through the gazebo. The roof of the gazebo can be seen near the centre of the picture. In the foreground is the red border, shown in detail in the picture below. The far end of this axis leads to a vista, also shown below.

The Western side of the East-West axis leads to a vista which looks over the village of Mickleton and the Vale of Evesham.

This is the view of Mickleton. With the naked eye, though not in this photo, the houses in the village and the church are readily visible. My main impression on leaving Hidcote was a feeling of amazement that one man could have done so much. The strong axes of the garden are memorable, and give a feeling of majesty and of the military mind organising the garden.

Local Road Maps
Admission Details

Kiftsgate Court Hidcote Manor shares Glyde Hill with another great English garden. Visit my page about Kiftsgate Court. And another National Trust garden in the area is Packwood House, with its unusual religious symbolism.

BBC Warwickshire Gardens Photo Competition BBC Coventry and Warwickshire are running a competition for photos of gardens in this area. Full details: BBC Coventry & Warwickshire Gardens

Heart-of-England Main Page Be sure to visit the Heart-of-England Main Page. This site has photos and details of many gardens, towns, villages, churches and other attractions in the area, that you will also enjoy visiting.

Warwickshire Countryside Views
Heart-of-England Main Page
Index of Locations
E-mail John Webb