Best British Gardens to Visit July 2023

Words by

Honey Wyatt

8th July 2023

If you're hunting for the best British gardens to visit during July 2023, we have found them, and just as these carefully tended spaces are peaking at their verdant best. Honey Wyatt shares the very best gardens to visit in summer 2023, from expansive Royal and National Parks to a secret sanctuary in the centre of London.

If you're looking for the best british gardens to visit in 2023, SPHERE has you covered whether you want to escape the city for a day or whisk the screens away from the kids for a family day out, or even discover the best hidden garden in London. From the 18th-century landscaping splendour of Stourhead to the metropolitain hideaway at Barbican conservatory, there's no shortage of ways to get your nature fix this summer.

Best British Gardens to Visit July 2023

Great Dixter is the family home of gardening writer Christopher Lloyd

If you get the urge to head towards the coast, this manor house and garden in East Sussex is an idyllic stop off to break up the journey.

Great Dixter dates back to the 15th century and was the home of gardener and gardening writer Christopher Lloyd. Find a garden set with curved yew hedges, orchards of plums, hawthorns and pears or take one of their many courses, from exotic gardening to pottery.

Great Dixter is in Northiam, East Sussex— a two hour drive from London. The house and gardens are open Tuesday to Sunday 11am to 5pm. Adult tickets start at £13.

Royal Garden: Savill and Valley Gardens, Windsor Great Park

The punchbowl in Valley Garden, Great Windsor Park, in spring

Literary Garden: Great Dixter

Nestled within Windsor Great Park are two gardens, spanning nearly 300 acres between them. Visit The Valley Gardens to see an array of flowers that were donated by gardeners across the country after the Second World War, including magnolias and azaleas, or look out across Virgina Water.

In June, experience the The Savill Gardens' roses in full bloom, or catch the hydrangeas in Summer Wood during July and August. After a long walk, treat yourself to a spot of afternoon tea from £27.50 in the Savill Garden Kitchen.

Windsor Great Park, including access to the Valley Gardens, is open daily and free to access.

The Savill Garden is open every day between 9am and 6pm, book in advance for adult tickets starting at £13.95.

Family garden: Kew Gardens

Gardens in bloom: Kew 2018

It never disappoints; Kew Gardens in summer is more spectacular than ever and there's something on for all the family.

Soak in the summer sun while wandering through the gardens or experience the work of award-winning artist Anita Quayyum Agha at the summer exhibition (on until 17 September), which draws on Islamic and and architecture to explore themes of interconnectivity between cultures.

Give the kids time to release some energy in the Children's Garden before taking a moment to breathe in The Hive, an interactive installation whose lights glow according to the vibrations of bees in its surroundings while humming in the same key that bees buzz in (C major)!

Kew Gardens is open year-round. Adult tickets start at £17, if booked in advance.

Secret garden: Barbican Conservatory

The roof of the Barbican conservatory is constructed of steel and glass that spans 23,000 square feet

Longing for a hideaway amid the buzz of London? Look no further than the Barbican conservatory, a secret tropical oasis in the City that only opens on select days of the week. Look out from the walkways of the roof over 23,000 square feet of rare and endangered species or peer into the ponds, home to koi fish, carp and terrapins.

Barbican Conservatory is free to access. Book in advance, spots are released online each Friday at 10am.

Landscape garden: Stourhead National Park

The Temple of Apollo overlooking the lake at Stourhead National Park

Admire a feat of landscaping at Stourhead National Park in Wiltshire, home to one of the first Palladian-style houses to be built in England. Drawing on the contemporary 18th century obsession with the Italian Renaissance, the garden at Stourhead features classical-style temples, including one modelled on the Pantheon in Rome, and the Palladian Bridge that looks out across the lake.

Expect to see pink magnolia blossoms if you visit in spring or early summer, or a blooming orchard of damson, mulberries, pear and apple trees.

Stourhead garden is open every day from 9am to 4pm. Tickets are £19 for adults and £9.50 for children.

Castle garden: Sissinghurst

The White Garden in June at Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent

What was once the home of author Vita Sackville-West and politician Harold Nicolson is now a world-renowned English garden. The brainchild of Vita’s creativity and Harold’s traditionalism, the garden at Sissinghurst Castle is filled with pockets of vibrant flowers and shrubs, from white Japanese anemones in the White Garden to purple tulips in the Purple Border and crabapple blossoms in The Orchard.

Peer inside the garden rooms to find objects that offer up a taste of Greece, including altars from the island of Delos that Vita and Harold would visit.

Sissinghurst Castle garden is open every day from 11am to 5.30pm. Adult tickets to the house and gardens are £16, child tickets are £8.