A fortnight ago my daughter Charlotte and I visited Hampton Court Palace. In last week’s post (click here) you could see the interior of  this royal palace in its full glory and today I spoil you with lots of pictures of the stunning gardens… I guess a visit to these gardens are always astonishing, no matter what time of year. But at the time of our visit (half July) the gardens looked absolutely splendid. The weather was perfect, the skies were magical and we definitely loved every single bit of the gardens… let me give you a tour…

The Great Fountain Garden

This part of the garden used to be Henry VIII’s hunting park..Now it is a formal garden with large yew trees which are clipped meticulously. There used to be 13 fountains, but only 1 remained.

I also loved the wide border next to the palace, with plenty of colours and a variety of flowers.

The Privvy Garden

This part of the garden is a restoration of William III’s Privvy Garden of 1702. Spring bulbs and summer annuals are bordered with box and provide a colourful garden during the spring and summer months. There is also the hornbeam bower which gives some shade on a hot day.

In this part of the garden are also a lot of pyramid yews and a fountain. The view towards the palace is magnificent and I just couldn’t get over it… I kept on taking pictures and I don’t know how many times I oooh’d and aaah’d!!!

The Pond Gardens

In this part of the garden, there  used to be ponds filled with fish for the palace kitchen. But by the end of the 17th century, the ponds were drained and  Queen Mary thought this space was ideal for her collection of exotic plants. Nowadays it is planted with spring and summer flowers. I loved how these gardens were secluded. There were several peepholes in the hedge so you could take a look at the gardens.

The Lower Orangery Garden and Terrace

Here you can see a selection of Queen Mary’s exotic plants. I love how they’re lined up in pots next to eachother.

The Royal Kitchen Garden

This garden was restored in 2014 according to the plans of the 18th century kitchen garden. It is planted with rare varieties of fruit and vegetables.

There were still other gardens to be seen : the Rose Garden, the Tiltyard Gardens, the Wilderness,… but unfortunately we didn’t have time to do them all. We did however make time for a piece of carrot cake in the tearoom 🙂

After that, we tried to find our way our of the maze (I realize now that I would suck joining the Maze Runner cast!!) and we ended our day with some wine in the garden of the tearoom…

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the gardens and whether you’re a keen gardener or not, a visit to these gardens will certainly not disappoint you! So next time you’re in London, do try to fit in a trip to this palace… You can thank me for the tip afterwards 😉

One more tip in this post… We’d had a lot of traffic on the way to and from Hampton Court. Before heading home, we could all do with a good meal in restful surroundings… and we found just that in ‘The Tickled Trout’, a pub in Wye in the beautiful Kent Downs!

We really enjoyed the 2 hours we spent in the pub garden, which is idyllically located next to the Great Stour… Having a pint of Stella (or water for the kids 🙂 ), a good burger or a steak and a lovely crumble with custard as a dessert… it was the perfect ending of our daytrip!

Plenty more nice pis to see in this post so don’t forget to scroll all the way down…

Love, Kathleen

Here’s a post about two gardens we visited in Normandy last year.