Coughton Court and the Stunningly Beautiful Walled Garden

I had a day out with a friend yesterday and we decided to visit Coughton Court. I've been to Coughton a couple of times in the last year but have never visited the Walled Gardens - they were closed when we went last summer.

Coughton Court has been the home of the Catholic Throckmorton family since 1409. In the early 1990's the gardens were totally different to their appearance today. Clare Throckmorton wished to create a series of beautiful gardens and grounds with a series of different themes - formal and informal, herbaceous borders, rose gardens, bog gardens and gardens with architectural and colour schemes.

We visited the two sunken gardens first which I think I've shown you in previous posts.

Coughton Court - we didn't tour the inside of the house yesterday.

The Walled Garden, designed by Christina Williams, was opened in 1996 and is divided into a series of "garden rooms" with a Rose Labyrinth. We were so lucky with the timing of the visit because the roses were perfection itself. In fact, the whole garden was just stunningly beautiful with so many different varieties of perennials which were just covered in bees. I can only compare it to my memories of Hidcote which is meant as a compliment as Hidcote is my favourite garden of all time.

I am afraid I've gone a bit over the top with the number of photos but it was so difficult to choose and hopefully they'll help you see some of the magic of this garden even if you can't hear the bees humming and smell the roses!

Just a few of the different types of roses

Lake - sadly we didn't have the time to explore this area of the grounds.

We then walked through a different part of the walled garden

There are two churches at Coughton Court. In the background of this photo is the Church of England church of St Peter which we visited last summer.

Yet more beautiful herbacous borders

It was good to see so many patches of unmown grass in the orchard to allow wildflowers and grasses to flourish and benefit insects.

The Vegetable Garden

Finally, we went into the Roman Catholic Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Elizabeth which I haven't visited before. I found it very beautiful in its simplicity. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be any information leaflets on the church to buy so I can't tell you too much of its history.

I shall return sooner rather than later as there is still the Woodland and Riverside Walks, the Bog Garden and Gentleman's Walk to explore and I could spend hours just sitting in the Rose Labyrinth :) In fact, I could say that Hidcote may well be in danger of falling from its top position as my personal favourite! I brought several plants home with me for our garden as a small reminder of the Walled Garden.



Thanks for sharing such a great day out with me J. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.


Reference : "Coughton Court Warwickshire House and Gardens" Guidebook