AN HISTORIC manor house and gardens, which is home to the world’s oldest topiary garden, has been crowned the best to visit in the UK.
Levens Hall and Gardens, near Kendal, won the top spot in a recent study by Easy Garden Irrigation that analysed over 30 of the UK’s most popular gardens, using their official websites to look at the size, heritage and percentage of excellent reviews on Tripadvisor.
According to the study the top 10 best gardens to visit in the UK are:
- Levens Hall, Cumbria
- Arundel Castle gardens, West Sussex
- Windsor Castle’s East Terrace Garden, Windsor
- Anglesey Abbey, Cambridge
- Mottisfont Abbey, Romsey
- Powis Castle, Wales
- Stourhead Gardens, Wiltshire
- Sculpture Garden at Farleys House & Gallery, Lewes
- Bodnant Gardens, Colwyn Bay
- Royal Botanic Garden, Richmond
Levens Hall, which has been in the ownership of the Bagot family for more than 400 years-currently Richard Bagot- is an Elizabethan manor famed for its beautiful gardens full of quirky topiary.
The topiary garden was laid out and designed in 1694 by Monsieur Guillaume Beaumont, a former head gardener to James II, creator of the Wilderness Garden at Hampton Court Palace, and a student of Andre Le Notre, who designed the gardens at Versailles for Louis XIV.
68 per cent of reviews on Tripadvisor rated Levens Hall as excellent.
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