Kent & Sussex: Gardens & Country Houses in Spring

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For the True Garden Enthusiast

 

An intimate small-group tour for flower and garden lovers, architecture and home décor enthusiasts, and anyone who loves the English countryside in springtime bloom.

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Experience charming rural life in South East England - visit spectacular country houses and gardens, take in the countryside at the height of spring, and wander through quaint English villages.

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We'll spend a week across Sussex and Kent visiting some of the most influential gardens in English horticultural history - gardens made famous not just for their beauty, but for the design ideas and the people behind them. The lineup includes Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Great Dixter House & Garden, Penshurst Place, Hever Castle, Nymans, and Chartwell.

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A special day trip takes us to Charleston Farmhouse, the former country home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and to Monk's House, the former home of Virginia Woolf - where we'll learn about the Bloomsbury Set, the circle of English artists, writers, and intellectuals who shaped early-20th-century culture, and whose gardens are every bit as expressive as their paintings and prose.

 

Perfect For

• Garden club members and Master Gardeners

• Architecture and home décor enthusiasts

• Flower-loving friends, couples, and solo travelers alike

 

Limited to just 12 travelers, so there's real time to linger in a border, ask the guide a follow-up question, or simply stand still and look.

 

Why This Tour, for Gardeners

• A century of garden design in one week - from Vita Sackville-West's romantic garden rooms at Sissinghurst to Christopher Lloyd's experimental, exuberant planting at Great Dixter, this is a tour through the ideas that shaped modern English gardening

• Gardens with a story - many of these gardens were designed by the people who lived in them: writers, artists, and politicians who gardened as seriously as they worked

• Full days of garden touring from a single base in Rye, so there's no living out of a suitcase between gardens

• Peak bloom timing - scheduled for spring, when Kent and Sussex gardens are at their most vivid

• A literary and artistic thread - Charleston Farmhouse, Berwick Church, and Monk's House trace the Bloomsbury Set's gardens, interiors, and murals in a single day

• Local expertise throughout - a Kent–Sussex English guide travels with the group all week

• Optional pre-breakfast walks for early risers who want quiet time in a village before the day's touring begins

• Full concierge support - so the only thing you have to think about is the plants

 

This is more than a garden tour. It's a week spent in the company of the gardens - and the gardeners - that helped define English horticulture as we know it today.

 

Reserve your place today. Spots are limited to 12 travelers and this tour sells out quickly.

 

​Itinerary Summary:

• Day 1 - London - Welcome Dinner

• Day 2 - Travel to Rye - Chartwell - Pashley Manor Gardens

• Day 3 - Sissinghurst Castle Garden - Great Dixter House & Garden

• Day 4 - Hever Castle & Gardens - Penshurst Place

• Day 5 - Charleston Farmhouse - Berwick Church - Monk's House

• Day 6 - Travel back to London - Nymans - English Farewell Dinner

• Day 7 - Departure

 

 

Detailed Trip Itinerary

 

Day 1 - Sunday - May 9: Arrival in London

 

We meet in London and settle in for our first night at the Chesterfield Mayfair Hotel, a traditional luxury hotel in the heart of Mayfair, within easy walking distance of St. James's Park, Buckingham Palace, and Hyde Park.

 

Our week begins that evening with a Welcome Dinner - a chance to meet fellow travelers and review the gardens and houses ahead.

 

Day 2 - Monday - May 10: London to Rye - Chartwell & Pashley Manor

 

We head into Sussex and Kent for a full week of garden touring, based for four nights in Rye, one of England's most charming medieval towns, staying at a family-owned inn on one of its most picturesque lanes.

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Chartwell, the former home of Sir Winston Churchill, offers a garden as personal as any writer's study - Churchill designed much of it himself, including a brick wall he built by hand, and a water garden he stocked with golden orfe.

Hever Castle & Gardens, childhood home of Anne Boleyn, pairs a moated medieval castle with an elaborate Italian Garden of classical statuary and a celebrated yew maze.

 

Pashley Manor Gardens rounds out the day with romantic landscaped grounds, spring bulb displays, and sculpture set among mature trees and lakes.

 

Day 3 - Tuesday, May 11: Sissinghurst & Great Dixter House

 

Sissinghurst Castle Garden is essential viewing for any garden enthusiast: created in the 1930s by writer Vita Sackville-West and diplomat Harold Nicolson around the ruins of an Elizabethan estate, it's built as a series of intimate garden rooms — most famously the White Garden — connected by hedged walkways and framed by an Elizabethan tower.

 

Great Dixter House & Garden, the former home of the influential gardener and writer Christopher Lloyd, is known for its bold, experimental, and deliberately unruly planting style - a garden that continues to push against convention rather than settle into it, tended today in the spirit Lloyd established.​

 

Day 4 - Wednesday, May 12: Hever Castle & Penshurst Place

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Hever Castle & Gardens, childhood home of Anne Boleyn, pairs a moated medieval castle with an elaborate Italian Garden of classical statuary and a celebrated yew maze.

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Penshurst Place, one of England's best preserved medieval manor houses, is surrounded by formal Tudor walled gardens considered among the oldest continuously culivated gardens in the country.

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Day 5 - Thursday, May 13: The Bloomsbury Set - Charleston, Berwick & Monk's House

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Today traces the gardens and interiors of the Bloomsbury Set, the circle of writers, artists, and thinkers who reshaped early-20th-century English culture.

 

Charleston Farmhouse, the country home of painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, is a living artwork — every surface hand-painted, and the garden designed as an extension of their art, full of color, sculpture, and informal planting.

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Berwick Church houses murals painted by Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and Quentin Bell during the Second World War, bringing Bloomsbury's distinctive style into an unexpected setting.

 

Monk's House, the modest country home of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, includes the garden where Virginia wrote in her garden lodge — a quieter, more contemplative counterpoint to Charleston.

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Day 6 - Friday, May 14: Nymans - Return to London - Farewell Dinner

 

We travel back to London, stopping at Nymans along the way, before gathering that evening for a traditional English Farewell Dinner at a private London club.

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Nymans, a National Trust garden built around the atmospheric ruins of a Gothic-style house, is treasured for its rare and exotic plant collections, gathered by three generations of the Messel family, along with a romantic rose garden and sweeping herbaceous borders.

 

Day 7 - Saturday, May 15: Farewell & Departure

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An optional morning walk through Hyde Park, then a final full English Breakfast together before departure.

 

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What's Included

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Intimate Small-Group Experience - Limited to 12 travelers, for real access and conversation with our guide throughout.

 

Six Nights in Elegant Hotels - Personally selected premiere hotels, including a family-owned inn in Rye.

 

Daily English Breakfasts

 

Welcome Dinner in London

 

Tea & Cakes at Garden Cafés

 

Traditional English Farewell Dinner at a private London club

 

Garden & Estate Excursions

• Chartwell (former home of Sir Winston Churchill) and Pashley Manor Gardens

• Sissinghurst Castle Garden and Great Dixter House & Garden

• Hever Castle & Gardens and Penshurst Place

• Charleston Farmhouse, Berwick Church, and Monk's House

• Nymans

 

Local Kent–Sussex English Guide - Traveling with the group throughout the week

 

All Admission Fees Included - Entry to all gardens, palaces, castles, and villas

 

Optional Morning Pleasure Walks

 

Ground Transportation - For all group activities and day trips

 

Personalized Concierge Service throughout the journey

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Arrival & Departure City:

London, England. 

 

Trip Cost:

• $9,790 per person - 7 days / 6 nights, double occupancy shared hotel room. Airfare not included.

• +$2,000 for a private single room upgrade (limited availability)

        

Space Is Limited -- Reserve Early!

Small group tour. Limited to 12 persons.