My garden tour to Southern England and the Channel Islands of Jersey, Guernsey and Sark began in London on May 14. It was my 30th garden tour and the seventh one to England.
In the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, I had no concerns about travelling mask-free and with no social-distancing. We had already travelled with confidence without being encumbered by all the social restrictions of the pandemic when we did our last tour to Sicily and Malta.
However, I was concerned about the weather – since it had been such a cold and late and rainy spring in England – and also about the ability to get ferries to and from the Channel Islands.
I was also aware of the challenges inherent in navigating the very narrow lanes and streets of Jersey and Guernsey. (Sark is car-free and the only way to get around it is by horse and cart or by tractor.)
So I was delighted when we ended up getting beautiful, warm, sunny weather for the entire duration of the trip and I also discovered that my concerns over travelling to and on the Channel Islands were also completely misplaced.
We took a short 15 minute flight from Jersey to Guernsey – the shortest plane ride I have ever taken – and I was also delighted to discover that we could be whisked around Jersey and Guernsey without any problem while the horse and buggy rides on Sark turned out to be heavenly – a slow, gentle, step-back-in-time, clip-clop down leafy lanes and through beautiful unspoiled countryside.
In London, my group of 17 gathered at The Bailey Hotel on Gloucester Road. This is an excellent four star hotel located directly opposite the Gloucester Road Tube Staton, giving easy access to the Piccadilly, District and Circle lines.
The hotel is also ideally located in a bustling neighbourhood with a great mix of restaurants, shops and pubs and with the V&A and Natural History museums a short walk around the corner.
Some of my group arrived early to visit museums and art galleries and go to shows in the West End and see popular sights, others stayed on after the tour to attend the Chelsea Flower Show and also do some shopping and sightseeing.
From London, we travelled west into Hampshire as we made our way to Dorset and Dorchester.
We had decided to use Dorchester as a base from where to do the first of our day trips to beautiful gardens and places of historic interest.
One of the key reasons for the tour was to visit the part of England that was once known as Wessex and to rediscover some of the charm and beauty of unspoiled England, especially in some of the quaint villages and country towns.
It was also our plan to see the Jurassic coastline, a rugged and ancient fossil filled seashore with impressive chalk cliffs. Now a world heritage site, the spectacular Jurassic Coast runs a total of 96 miles from Devon into Dorset.
On the way to Dorset, we stopped at Sir Harold Hillier’s famous garden outside Romsey where we enjoyed seeing some rare and unusual trees as well as some beautiful views of the Hampshire countryside. From the Hillier garden, we continued on until we reached Lyme Regis.
Yes, we went past Dorchester to get to Lyme Regis, but we wanted to see the famous Cobb where the French Lieutenant’s Women was filmed and also the place Jane Austen featured in her novel, Persuasion.
In the bright, warm sunshine, my group loved strolling the waterfront and the quaint shopping streets at Lyme.
From Lyme, we travelled back to Dorchester and checked into the lovely King’s Arms Hotel on High Street after which some of our group got to taste the celebrated local beer, Tom Brown, and walk the quaint streets, where located just around the corner was the house which Thomas Hardy featured in his novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge.
From Dorchester, we visited two of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen, the first at Athelhampton House in the Piddle Valley between Tolpuddle and Puddletown, and the next day Mapperton, a superb garden beside a fabulous Jacobean manor house.
Both properties were mentioned in the Domesday Book, but Athelhampton’s current house dates back to Tudor times and the exquisite gardens were created in the 1890s when Thomas Hardy was also on site to add his twopence-worth, being a friend of the owner, Alfred Cart de Lafontaine.
Both of these extraordinary gardens had a huge impact on my group. They loved exploring every inch of them with lots of time to gently stroll and take in views from different positions and to explore all the wonderful garden features with the peaceful sound of birdsong and the bleating sheep in the adjacent meadow and the continual cooing of wood pigeons in a nearby wood to complete the experience.
One of my group said, “people would give their right arm to experience this.” It was indeed a special day.
At the bottom of the Athelhampton garden, we found a pristine stream, the Little Piddle, running fresh and clear with long strands of water ranunculus stretched out under the surface like a beautiful girl’s hair and with white flowers dancing on the top of the water. It was a mesmerizing sight.
Athelhampton, the splendid house and garden, was snatched from the brink of being ruined by greedy, uncaring investors by financial whiz Giles Keating who has succeeded at saving the quality and historical charm of both house and garden. He’s a new hero for me and I hear he is also doing other very good works.
Dorset is one of the prettiest counties in England and we enjoyed driving down lovely tree-canopied lanes and through the gentle, rolling countryside into ancient villages like Cerne Abbas where we stopped to see the chalk drawing known as the Cerne Giant or the Rude Man on the hillside.
Sherbourne is another beautiful country town with a very quaint and pleasant high street with many old and picturesque houses.
We visited the local castle gardens, where gorgeous lake views were framed by great swathes of white cow parsley and a natural woodland of leafy deciduous trees, creating a classic English landscape scene.
One evening, we went to the village of Piddehinton for dinner at the Thimble Inn. The river Piddle, by the way, has not only given its name to villages but also to the local beer, so we had fun drinking pints of Piddle.
While in Cerne Abbas, the beer was called Knobs – naturally with the Rude Man carved into the local hillside – so we had some laughs raising our Knobs and toasting good health in Cerne.
Before leaving Dorset, we spent the morning strolling around the exotic 20 acre Abbotsbury subtropical garden, located right on the Jurassic coast.
This garden has an amazing plant collection, including mighty wing-nut trees, Japanese camellias plus a Burmese rope bridge and many other specialty features.
It had all the qualities of an old favourite Cornish ravine garden with giant trees soaring to great heights and forests of lush gunnera firmly rooted in wet lands in the lower valley areas
It was hard to say goodbye to Dorset. We had grown used to the beautiful towns and villages that look so well cared for. The thatched roofed houses were a particularly pleasing sight. Apparently, they are expensive to do and don’t last forever, so it was impressive to see the care and attention they were given.
We had no complaints about our time there. Everything was beautiful and people were very kind and friendly.
The ferry to Jersey was unpredictable. As hard as we tried, we couldn’t get a firm commitment from the ferry company. To be safe, we decided to fly to Jersey from Southampton.
This turned out to be a seamless transition. Southampton is a tiny airport and we were processed very quickly and efficiently and the flight was quick. Some of our group were happy they didn’t have to do a sea voyage, so it actually turned out to be a good switch.
In St. Helier, the port capital of Jersey, we checked into our lovely chateau-style hotel. Hotel de France on St. Saviour’s Road.
I was delighted to find the hotel had a great pool and spa area, an amenity some of our group loved and took advantage of.
It is always an added bonus when a hotel has a great pool or a lovely garden or roof patio or some fun bonus amenity.
Our hotel also had a terrace with views over St. Hilier and the sea.
Our goal on Jersey was to explore the island – a place none of us had been before – and to come away with as complete an experience as possible.
To achieve this, we criss-crossed the island, visiting beaches and special headland places, such as the Corbiere lighthouse, Elizabeth Castle and the beach at St. Aubin.
We spent time at the lavender farm and delightful Samares Manor Garden in St. Clement and we were all blown away by the quality of Gerald Durrell’s animal sanctuary with its natural compounds for gorillas and orangutans and so much more.
Some of our group – including Loraine and I – had been to the world-class orchid garden in Singapore, but we were delighted by the displays we found at the Jersey Orchid Foundation.
It was a top notch show and we all came away enchanted by the lovely rural setting and the calm and beautiful atmosphere in the orchid gardens.
One of the unexpected highlights of our time on Jersey was our visit to La Hougue Bie Museum, a neolithic ritual site, home to a lovely medieval chapel atop a grassy hill, beneath which was discovered an ancient passageway and shelter dating back to 4000 BC and therefore older than Stonehenge.
In addition to these wonders, we were hugely impressed by a first class exhibition of 70,000 ancient Celtic coins and jewellery dating back 2,000 years that was uncovered in 2012 on the site by people searching with simple metal detectors.
One of our group told me that when she tells people she is on a “garden tour” they look at her somewhat baffled and bemused.
“They have no idea that these tours are much more than visits to beautiful gardens,” she said.”We go to so many other fascinating places, like this one.”
She is right, of course. We do like to see fabulous gardens, but also historic and picturesque sites as well as places of artistic and cultural interest. It all adds up to fascinating days with frequent fun stops.
Before leaving for Jersey, we explored other parts of the island, seeing the north coast and more of the interior.
Eventually, we arrived at the airport and took a quick 15 minute flight over to Guernsey, which some say is a quieter, less populated island with even more beautiful beaches and bucolic views and vistas.
On Guernsey, we checked into another terrific hotel, Les Rocquettes, which I could not believe not only had a beautiful garden but also a fabulous pool and spa area.
By now, we were all adjusted to the slower pace of the Channel Islands and we especially loved the delicious butter and ice cream of Guernsey.
We were also amused (and somewhat alarmed) that it is normal on Guernsey for vehicles (of every kind) to mount the sidewalk in order to pass and keep the flow of traffic going. It was a little startling to see how our bus driver very confidently and casually drove up on to the curb as we went along.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “ the police won’t give me a ticket because they also drive the same way, going up the curb when they need to pass.”
However, our first adventure on Guernsey was not to explore the island but to take a short boat ride to the neighbouring car-free island of Sark, where to explore, we had to travel around by horse drawn cart.
The gentle pace of this mode of transport took us instantly back to a quieter, calm, less hurried time. And as we moved along narrow lanes with beautiful hedgerows full of wild flowers, the only sound in our ears was that of birdsong and the gentle, rhythmic clip-clip of horse hooves. What a delight.
On Sark, we visited Stocks hotel for lunch as well as La Seigneurie Gardens. The sea trip back to Guernsey gave us a chance to see the island of Herm and some rock outcroppings with puffins.
On Guernsey, the puffin has been celebrated with the placement of more than 80 puffin statues around the island. We had fun competing to see who got snapshots of the most statues. I ended up with only 8. Would love to have seen more.
Back on Guernsey, we visited a classic Victorian walled garden at Le Villocq, opened by King Charles when he was still merely a prince.
We loved our visit to Cobo Bay where seagulls masterfully hovered on a warm breeze blowing over a spectacular stretch of sandy beach.
From there we skipped to Vazon Bay to Fort Hommet where yellow mustard and pink sea thrift blooms smothered the headland. It was one of prettiest views and places on the island.
I was frequently surprised how many of our group were interested in taking pictures of cows, but the cows on Jersey and Guernsey did seem to have more beautiful faces than cows I have seen elsewhere, so I guess I should not have been so surprised. Who knew cows would capture our attention.
And it was it a pleasure to visit the little mosaic chapel, built entirely of broken pieces of Wedgwood china, at Les Vauxbelets, which is surrounded by some of the most picturesque countryside.
Before leaving Guernsey, we visited the Victor Hugo house and garden in the centre of St. Peter Port. Who knew he was a man of such eclectic, some might say, bizarre taste, such as a large, dark, wooden canopied bed with a headboard feature – half-skull, half-man – above it.
This bed he never slept in but kept as the place he went to when he thought he was so sick he would die. He also did his writing standing up. Quite revolutionary in his own way, which is why he ended up living in exile on Guernsey. It was a fascinating visit.
From Guernsey, we took the ferry to Poole and on to Bournemouth for a night before heading back to London, where some of our group went to the Chelsea Flower Show while others headed down to Piccadilly to have lunch and shop at Fortnum and Mason.
Our farewell dinner at an Italian restaurant in South Kensington was a happy denouement with everyone chatting about highlights of our adventure together and wishing for more of the same.
We never say never, but this could be our last garden tour, although our excellent tour manager, Kathy Trevelyan is determined to get us back to see the Cotswolds, a part of England that she is especially familiar with now that she lives in Stroud.
My heart is still very much in love with Italy, so I wonder if another trip there is in order.
For all those who came with us to Dorset and the Channel Islands, I hope your heads are still full of the favourite sites we visited as well as the many happy days we spent together, laughing and enjoying the peace and beauty of some special England and island paradises.
Wonderful write up of our trip.
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