Looking for a place for a holiday in the UK that also has a stunning garden? Here are a selection of the best hotels with gardens, including B&Bs and self catering accommodation, which offer access to gorgeous gardens, often with significant horticultural heritage thrown in.
There's a chance to stay on the Chatsworth Estate, stay in a house surrounded by a garden once cultivated by the likes of Penelope Hobhouse and watch over one of Humphrey Repton's lovely landscapes too.
Pick your favourites of these hotels with gardens.
Don't miss our round up of the best Air BnBs with gardens too.
The best hotels with gardens in the UK
Hotels with gardens in the south west
Durslade Farmhouse, Bruton, Somerset
This six-bedroom farmhouse is located at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, site of Piet Oudolf’s perennial meadow. Renovated by Argentinian architect Luis Laplace, the interiors celebrate the natural antiquity of the building, combining original fittings with bold twists and unique artworks.
A short walk away, through the historic farmyard buildings, now the art gallery, the Oudolf Field brims with colour in the summer months as its 17 curving, interlocking garden beds explode with rudbeckias, echinaceas, heleniums, sedums, actaeas and veronicastrums.
Book a stay at Durslade Farmhouse | Tel 01749 814700
The Newt in Somerset, Bruton, Somerset
The 30 acres of gardens of Hadspen House, what is now The Newt in Somerset, were at one point in their history designed by Penelope Hobhouse and later housed the walled garden of Canadian colourists Nori and Sandra Pope. The house is now a hotel and the grounds a visitor attraction.
Guests can wander the themed borders, walled Parabola garden, potager, lawns, meadows and woodland. This summer, the new Roman Villa Gardens, designed by Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt, will open and will include a Roman-style planted flower meadow, heritage fruit trees and a medicinal garden.
Book a stay at The Newt | Tel 01963 577750
Hotel Endsleigh, Tavistock, Devon
One of English landscape designer Humphy Repton’s landscapes, this was among his last projects and one that spans a moment in garden history between the Landscape Movement and Picturesque ideals.
Now a hotel, the grounds still include Repton’s flower garden and rose walk, which leads guests to explore the landscape beyond. Here you’ll find a ravine plunging down to the River Tamar, extensive tree collection planted by Repton and carefully placed rustic buildings, such as the dairy.
Book a stay at Hotel Endsleigh | Tel 01822 870000
The Spread Eagle, Stourton, Wiltshire
Traditional yet smart country inn situated on Stourton’s village green and just opposite the entrance to the magnificent landscaped gardens of Stourhead. Guests staying at The Spread Eagle are free to enjoy the gardens at their leisure.
The temples, monuments, rare trees and plants at Stourhead are set around a magnificent lake. The gardens offer year-round highlights and Stourhead is among the National Trust’s most popular properties.
Book a stay at The Spread Eagle Inn | Tel 01747 840587
Hotels with gardens in the south east
The Bell Inn, Ticehurst, East Sussex
Whimsical, fun and kooky, The Bell Inn has rooms in the main building but also four guest lodges in the garden. The pub is very much for the community and this extends to the garden, with a design by Jo Thompson that befits all – including pollinators.
As with the inn’s interior, the garden too has unexpected quirky delights – tufts of grass and the odd banana plant protrude from the lodge roofs. A palisade of weathered timber sleepers and seating surrounds a central fire pit, encircled by borders woven through with ribbons of ornamental grasses. Pops of seasonal colour in the planting come from spring bulbs and late-summer dahlias.
Book a stay at The Bell Inn | Tel 01580 200300
Sopwell House, St Albans, Hertfordshire
In the grounds of Sopwell House, a luxury hotel in the Hertfordshire countryside, the spa gardens by Ann-Marie Powell are designed to feel like a tropical Balinese retreat. Ann-Marie and her team designed almost everything, from the three secluded outdoor hot tubs to day bed loungers beneath the canopies of specimen Osmanthus heterophyllus, and sculptural boundary screens.
Bespoke glass screens were commissioned to bounce light into the space, which has a central rill, a six-metre copper water wall and bubbling water bowls.
Elsewhere around the hotel are other traces of Ann-Marie’s handiwork: the Amelanchier x lamarckii underplanted with Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ at the front of the main hotel and a botanical garden for the hotel suites.
Book a stay at Sopwell House | Tel 01727 864477
Tillingham Winery, Peasmarsh, East Sussex
Hidden away down winding lanes near Rye is an old farmstead called Tillingham, recently renovated and now home to a biodynamic vineyard and new winery, as well as 11 rooms in an old hop barn and an uber-hip restaurant.
Designer Marian Boswall is responsible for the naturalistic gravel garden covering the old farmyard, her concept borrowed from the 70 acres of surrounding farmland and designed to meld into it. The grid pattern of the vines informs the arrangement of the planting beds, which include plants such as Rudbeckia fulgida var. deamii and Verbena rigida chosen for their pollinator appeal.
Textured concrete, recycled farmyard metals and vessels from the wine making process anchor the scheme.
Book a stay at Tillingham | Tel 01797 208226
Gravetye Manor, near West Hoathly, West Sussex
This impressive Elizabethan manor was home to renowned garden writer William Robinson from 1884 until his death in 1935. Robinson’s books The Wild Garden and The English Flower Garden advocated more natural-looking plantings and he put some of his ideas into practice at Gravetye.
Guests at what is now a luxury hotel are free to wander the grounds. Don’t miss the oval walled vegetable garden and the meadow that stretches down to the river – a wonderful place to pause on summer evenings.
Book a stay at Gravetye Manor | Tel 01342 810567
Bressingham Hall, Diss, Norfolk
Here’s a bed & breakfast for plant-lovers, open to guests from April to October. The listed Georgian-style house is set at the heart of Bressingham Gardens, and former home of the late Alan Bloom, the founder of Blooms Nurseries.
Visitors are welcome to enjoy the 17 acres, including the Dell Garden, planted by Alan, and Foggy Bottom, planted by his son Adrian, who continues to develop the gardens, always with an eye to innovation.
Book a stay at Bressingham Gardens | Tel 01379 687243
Hotels with gardens in London
The NoMad Hotel, Covent Garden, London
Garden designer Alasdair Cameron and his team have created magical and enticing spaces for the ultra-fashionable and artsy NoMad hotel, which occupies the Grade II-listed former Bow Street Magistrates Court and police station.
Plants trail lushly and exotically from countless planters placed around the hotel’s three-tiered atrium with its magnificent domed glass roof. Lemon and orange trees are underplanted with a combination of ferns, including Asplenium nidus and Asplenium ‘Parvati’, and Pilea peperomioides. Stairs are dressed with Ficus lyrata, Monstera deliciosa and Thaumatophyllum bipinnatifidum.
Book a stay at NoMad London | Tel 01343 612312
Hotels with gardens in central England
Thyme, Southrop, Gloucestershire
At the expansive Thyme in the Cotswolds, garden designer Bunny Guinness helped owner Caryn Hibbert fulfil her vision with a series of classic country-house gardens that weave their way around the 17th-century barns, houses and cottages, all with unique bookable rooms, and feature cottage planting, including thyme, lavender and persicarias.
Working gardens and orchards supply flowers for the house, fruit and vegetables for the kitchen, and herbs for the spa.
In addition to Bunny’s gardens is a 40-acre water meadow, that is a site of special scientific interest, displaying a rich tapestry of wild grasses and flowers.
Book a stay at Thyme | Tel 01367 850174
Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Great Milton, Oxfordshire
Chris Beardshaw recently designed a wildflower meadow at Raymond Blanc’s long-standing hotel and restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, planted beneath some old apple trees.
The bountiful border has the glamour and vibrancy of an herbaceous border but the informality of a traditional meadow. There is an endless succession of planting rewards throughout the seasons as Chris took inspiration from the robustness of the planting communities of native meadow.
During summer, expect foxgloves mingling with goat’s beard, snow rush and brunneras under the leafy apple boughs.
Book a stay at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons | Tel 01844 278881
Barnsley house, Cirencester
An irresistible Cotswold house, once home to gardening icon Rosemary Verey, who created one of the finest private gardens in the country.
While Barnsley House is now a boutique hotel, its gardens have been maintained in Rosemary’s spirit with formal lawns merging to ancient meadows, a productive and stylish potager and delightful architectural garden buildings.
Book a stay at Barnsley House | Tel 01285 740000
Lower House, Hay on Wye, Herefordshire
‘Dingle’ perfectly describes the lush, leafy dell in which Lower House is tucked, just a stone’s throw from Offa’s Dyke.
The garden to this inviting bed and breakfast is divided into different areas, each based around a strong layout and using plenty of luxuriant planting. There’s quirky topiary, an impressive veg patch and a woodland garden set around a series of pools.
As well as the rooms in the house, the owners have added a garden room offering more intimate self-catering accommodation amid the box garden.
Book a stay at Lower House Garden | Tel 01497 820773
Hotels with gardens in north England
Rudding Park Hotel, Harrogate, North Yorkshire
This grand, 90-bedroom hotel with a spa, two restaurants and a kitchen garden is a stately sight, standing in 300 acres of landscaped gardens and woodland. Since 2009, Matthew Wilson has been designing the outdoor spaces, including a tree-planting project, mini gardens outside bedrooms, the kitchen garden and a rooftop spa garden.
The kitchen garden is the star, with trained fruit trees and 52 raised beds made from native oak from the grounds at Rudding Park. More than 500 different herbs, salads, vegetables and edible flowers, with an emphasis on the unusual, grow here, destined for the restaurant.
Book a stay at Rudding Park | Tel 01423 871350
Walwick Hall, Hexham, Northumberland
Metres from Hadrian’s Wall, this Grade II-listed Georgian country house was turned into a ten-bedroom boutique hotel and spa in 2016.
The grounds of Walwick Hall sprawl to 100 acres and Alistair Baldwin created gardens to soften the landscape on all sides of the hotel building, designed to immerse guests in plants. Deep borders are thick with cottage-garden plants, such as geraniums, brook thistle, alchemillas, astrantias and columbines, while hedged rose beds and squadrons of copper beech frame the dining terrace.
Book a stay at Walwick Hall | Tel 01434 620156
Middleton Lodge Hotel, Middleton Tyas, North Yorkshire
The Grade II*-listed walled garden at Middleton Lodge, revived by a plan from Tom Stuart-Smith, now acts as a backdrop to the Fig House, a wedding venue on this 200-acre estate, which also has a hotel, cottages, and restaurant.
Tom divided the two acres into four areas – spring, summer, prairie and kitchen gardens – with a central lawn planted with Indian bean trees and box topiary. Domed iron arbours are trained with pears, white roses and wisteria, while pathways weave and thread their way through the garden.
Some rooms have direct access into the kitchen gardens, which can be explored by guests first thing in the morning.
Book a stay at Middleton Lodge | Tel 01325 377977
Millgate house, Richmond, Yorkshire
The sheltered walled garden to this Georgian house bed and breakfast is a lesson in clever planting. At just 0.3 acres, the garden is small but festooned with old-fashioned roses, ferns, hostas and snowdrops, not to mention a magnificent Magnolia x kewensis, at its best in early spring, and evergreen shrubs for winter interest.
The garden overlooks the River Swale and the Cleveland Hills.
Book a stay at Millgate House | Tel 01748 823571
Hotels with gardens in Wales
Allt-y-bela B&B, Usk, Monmouthshire
Arne Maynard’s unmistakable terracotta-coloured medieval farmhouse rises skyward from the green of his own garden, hidden down a secluded lane in quiet Monmouthshire countryside. Arne and William Collinson moved here in 2007 and have spent the past 15 years working on the garden, which features some of Arne’s signature design elements.
Built between 1420 and 1599, the house has a Renaissance tower created in the 17th century, and this romance is replicated throughout the garden – a place to lose oneself among the clipped topiary, pleached crab apples and wildflower meadow that beautify this secret valley. The tumbling roses, untamed grass and kitchen garden add to the fairy tale.
Available for bed and breakfast.
Book a stay at Allt-y-bela | Tel 07892 403103
Bodysgallen Hall, Llandudno
Extensive restoration over the last 30 years has brought the Bodysgallen Hall gardens back from dereliction. Guests at this luxury hotel may wander more than 200 acres of well-tended parkland and gardens. Highlights include a rare 17th-century box parterre, walled Edwardian rose garden and several follies and woodland walks. Themed garden tours are led by the head gardener throughout the year.
Book a stay at Bodysgallen Hall | Tel 01492 584466
Hotels with gardens in Scotland
The Fife Arms, Braemar, Aberdeenshire
Reinvented and reopened in 2018 by Iwan and Manuela Wirth of Hauser & Wirth, this 46-bedroom Victorian coaching inn has a garden by Jinny Blom, who was commissioned to weave a new story for the grounds overlooking the River Clunie. Planting takes its cues from the Victorian Scottish baronial era, plant hunters and folklore.
Book a stay at The Fife Arms | Tel 01339 720200
Self-catering accommodation with gardens
Cadhay Manor, Ottery St Mary, Devon
The Elizabethan house at Cadhay has been described as one of the top manor houses in the country. Up to 22 guest can stay in the big house while the Stables and Coach House overlook the Kitchen Garden. Exclusive access to the gardens is part of your stay.
An area of the garden has been converted to allotments for local residents, so the gardens are productive as well as ornamental. Sleeps up to 22 people.
Book a stay at Cadhay | Tel 01404 813511
Hailstone Barn, Cherington, Gloucestershire
The gravel garden surrounding this barn conversion rental property that sleeps six, close to the Cotswold town of Tetbury, was landscaped by James Alexander-Sinclair, and is designed to complement and enhance the agricultural land that spreads away from it.
Once filled with cattle, then weeds, the old farmyard is now a hazily romantic place in which to find a lounger and hide away within the cocooning meadow-style planting that culminates during summer with Sisyrinchium striatum and lupins blurring with Anemanthele lessoniana, euphorbias and Phlomis russeliana.
Book a stay at Hailstone Barn | Tel 01386 896383
Temple Guiting, Gloucestershire
Not only do you get to stay in a quintessential 15th-century manor of creamy Cotswold stone, but house guests can indulge in gardens designed by award-winning designer Jinny Blom. The 14 acres are divided into different areas of planting – all richly romantic, with frothy swathes of flowers. Sleeps up to 10 people.
Book a stay at Temple Guiting Manor | Tel 01451 851862
Chatsworth, Bakewell, Derbyshire
Chatworth’s vast gardens cover 105 acres and are an astonishing display of power and wealth. They also chart the changes in garden fashion over 400 years.
The estate offers a choice of accommodation from hotels, bed and breakfast and self-catering, including Swiss Cottage, which sleeps six. The house was designed by Joseph Paxton (or his associate) as an ‘eye-catcher’ to be viewed from various vantage points around the estate. Its lakeside setting is significant too, as this is the water source for the magnificent cascade, built in 1690 and a central feature of the garden.
Accommodation for 2-10 people.
Book a stay at Chatsworth | Tel 01246 565379
Houghton hall, Kings Lynn, Norfolk
This magnificent Palladian house was home to Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first Prime Minister. In more recent times Houghton won the 2007 Historic Houses Association Garden of the Year.
The five-acre walled garden was renovated and redesigned in 2003 by Isabel and Julian Bannerman and features 130m of herbaceous borders, yew hedging, rose garden, Italian garden and water features – all designed with the Bannermans’ sense of drama and style.
Stay in the Water House, built in the 1720s on the edge of the deer park, and receive complimentary tickets to the Hall and gardens (during garden open season only). Sleeps 5 people.
Book a stay at Houghton Hall | Tel 01485 528569
Goddards, Dorking, Surrey
Arts and Crafts masterpiece by that definitive design partnership Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll. Built at the turn of the 20th century, the house includes its original skittle alley.
Out in the garden, the west-facing courtyard has recently been restored according to Jekyll’s planting plan. The property is managed by the Landmark Trust and is one of a selection of their properties with interesting gardens. Sleeps up to 12 people.
Book a stay at Goddards | Tel 01628 825925
Audley End, Essex
This grand Jacobean house is surrounded by parkland designed by Lancelot ’Capability’ Brown and dotted with ornamental garden buildings by Robert Adam. As well as this natural-style landscape, there is a formal parterre and extensive kitchen garden.
Stay at Cambridge Lodge cottage and you can wander the gardens until dusk, well after other visitors have gone. English Heritage has accommodation at other properties with interesting gardens, such as the Greenhouse Apartment at Walmer Castle in Kent, with its contemporary garden honouring the Queen Mother. Sleeps 4 people.
Book a stay at Audley End | Tel 01799 522842, Reservations 0333 253 4139
Howick Hall, Alnwick, Northumberland
The 2009 Garden Museum/Gardens Illustrated Garden of the Year, Howick Hall Gardens hug the coast, offering everything from snowdrops at the start of the season to magnificent autumnal colours in the arboretum. Many trees were planted by Lord Howick, using seed collected on his own planthunting travels.
Stay in the Bathing House or The Old School and enjoy unlimited access to the gardens. Sleeps 2-6 people
Book a stay at Howick Hall | Tel 01665 577285
Cambo Estate, St Andrews, Fife
This Victorian walled garden with effusive plantings of perennials also includes a fountain and rose-clad wrought iron bridges spanning the Cambo Burn. Beyond the walled garden are an area of prairie planting, a bog garden and woodland extending to the sea. Cambo is renowned for its snowdrops and a visit in early spring is sure to delight.
Guests can choose from bed and breakfast or a selection of self-catering options, including apartments in the Gardener’s Wing. Accommodation for 2-16 people
Book a stay at Cambo Estate | Tel 01333 450054
Rowley Cottage at Iford Manor, Wiltshire
Surrounded by the tranquility of the Iford Valley, Rowley Cottage is grade II-listed and was originally part of the medieval stables at Iford. On the edge of the grade I-listed Iford Manor Gardens, this is the perfect getaway for garden enthusiasts.
Guests at Rowley have access to the gardens outside of normal visiting hours, so you can explore these exquisite gardens in peace. The cottage also has a small private garden for your use.
Book a stay at Rowley Cottage | Tel 01225 863 146
We've also found holiday accommodation with outdoor baths; read our guide to find luxuriously secluded al fresco tubs you can try this year and a selection of beautiful designs to buy for your own garden.
