Retrospective Blog - Bourton House Gardens (May 2024)

Not terribly proficient with the ubiquitous selfie!

Currently, these Blogs are retrospective because of the difficulties I am experiencing with my vision – which affects everything – including even going for a simple walk or reading a book.  Therefore, it has been a pretty dull couple of months without inclination or ability to do anything or go anywhere. As you can imagine, that does not do a great deal for my mood!

However, a month or so ago (during a miserable half-term break, at the end of May) we did tick the box to visit a local house and garden which is on the Cotswold tourist trail and, of course, when it’s on your doorstep you never make the effort! 

Bourton-on-the-Hill is only 14 miles from our cottage and is a tiny village a stone's thrown from Snowshill and Moreton-in-the-Marsh and close to Stow-on-the-Wold and Broadway.  In the immediate vicinity there are also the Batsford Arboretum  and Sezincote (a bit of a curve-ball for the Cotswolds as the 200-year-old Mogul Indian palace and estate is inspired by the Taj Mahal).  However, Bourton House Gardens was more accessible and a ‘gentler’ activity suiting my demeanour at the time.

 
​"As featured on BBC2’s Gardeners’ World” Bourton House Gardens embrace luxuriant terraces and wide herbaceous borders with stunning plant, texture and colour combinations.  Features include a topiary walk, a White Garden and several spring-fed water features including a raised basket pond from the Great Exhibition of 1851.

From their website, here is a brief history of Bourton House:  “Since Saxon times, the stone-built village of Bourton-on-the-Hill has hugged the Cotswold escarpment. Bourton House and its Brewhouse, Stables and Coach House were built on monastic lands and have created a courtyard since the late 16th century. The Grade I listed Tithe Barn preserves the dedication stone of 1570 with the initials RP for the then owner, Richard Palmer.

The house itself was rebuilt as a foursquare Jacobean house by the eminent lawyer, Sir Nicholas Overbury in 1598. At the beginning of the 18th century, the then unfashionable house was once again rebuilt on the earlier footprint by Alexander Popham, the grandson of a Cromwellian general. The house was taken down to its lower ground floor but the whimsical towers retained, the slits replaced by generous Georgian sash windows. The architect remains unknown. This setting has remained unchanged for over three hundred years”.
​SEE:

• Bourton House Garden
• A guide to Bourton on the Hill | Discover Cotswolds
• Sezincote