The lush greens of Spring give way to the bold colours of peonies and roses on this late June tour of some of the West Country’s most magical gardens and estates. We are delighted to bring you several exclusive visits, including the 16th-century home and garden of Julian and Isabel Bannerman, and the intimate, secret garden at Chilcombe.

The price of the tour includes your 6 night stay at Symondsbury Old Rectory, a spacious 300-year old Georgian house, as well as delicious teas and dinners prepared by Caroline and Clare, with help from Dorset’s best cake baker, Haley. As usual we will be lunching at a variety of our favourite restaurants in this beautiful corner of south-west England. It’s all included.

Every journey we create leaves behind more than memories — it inspires home gardening, creates connections, and prompts returns. Hear how these experiences have impacted the lives of some of our amazing travellers.

We will be staying at Symondsbury Old Rectory, reserved exclusively for G&T guests. It is not a hotel, so the atmosphere is that of a country house week – and every bedroom is unique.

The Old Rectory is an early Georgian house with splendidly high ceilings and elegant sash windows, reputed to be the biggest rectory in England. It has a huge comfortable sitting room, a dining room and even a library games room with a pool table.

Recently renovated, the Old Rectory has 11 immaculate bedrooms, seven of them fully en suite doubles, and four further standard doubles (one a twin) sharing bathroom facilities with one other room. Rooms will be allotted in order of booking.

Simon and Jason take food seriously, and Dorset's fields, coasts and skies - not to mention a host of growers, farmers, fishers and cooks - make this one of England's top spots for fresh, seasonal, local food.

G&T guests enjoy amazing lunches, dinners and teas, every day.

The Ilchester Arms is a tremendous, old school country pub with delicious locally-sourced dishes, served in a warm and inviting atmosphere. ,

The menu revolves around locally sourced ingredients, inspired by the environment and the beautiful Somerset countryside. Holm works with local farmers, growers, butchers and anyone who shares their love of exceptional ingredients, treated with care and respect.

We will enjoy stunning coastal views over fresh, locally sourced ingredients from a seasonal menu, complemented by a specialized wine selection. The inviting atmosphere and artfully designed interior make it one of the coast's most sought-after tables.

Brassica Restaurant offers a delightful dining experience with seasonally inspired menus crafted from locally sourced ingredients. A welcoming atmosphere and exceptional service delivers creative dishes that celebrate the region's culinary heritage, making each visit memorable.

On our return home from the gardens, there’s always a fresh cake baked by Dorset’s best cake maker, a high accolade which goes to Hayley, Darcey’s mum. Victoria sponge, scones and cream, a towering coffee and walnut cake with just the right proportion of icing to cake… every day is a new revelation!

And then, after tea, after evening drinks, it’s time for dinner.

Need we say more?

Caroline and Claire are possibly the best chefs in the county. Their top-restaurant-level suppers bring guests back to G&T year on year.

Claire’s hugely successful vegetarian/vegan restaurant, f.east, recently moved to lovely new premises in Bridport. She uses the freshest seasonal herbs and vegetables, much of it picked daily from her own Dorset kitchen garden, to create delicious and colourful dishes which draw on influences from Asia, North Africa, South America and the Mediterranean.

Her style of cookery is light, delicious and always beautiful.

Caroline brilliantly conjures up delectable dinners, whether it’s lamb cutlets or delicate venison, mouth-watering medallions of pork, or elegant slices of beef; they are served with all the trimmings and fresh, seasonal vegetables.

For pudding, something sophisticated and fresh.

You are collected at Dorchester station, to arrive at the Old Rectory for tea. We have time to unwind and enjoy the garden over drinks, before dinner is served.

Simon Tiffin and Jason Goodwin will set the scene with an introductory talk on the history and gardens of west Dorset.

Home to the Earl and Countess of Sandwich, Mapperton has been described as the nation’s finest manor house and its grounds are equally remarkable. The gardens feature stunning topiary, a magnificent orangery and a recently restored eighteenth century swimming pool. The planting in the borders is varied and elegant and the arboretum features a stunning collection of trees and shrubs. A talk on the history of Mapperton gardens will be given by the Countess of Sandwich.

Lunch is at the award-winning restaurant, Brassica.

In the afternoon we enjoy an exclusive visit to the wildflower meadows created by Johnnie and Sophie Boden at their home, Wytherston Farm. The meadows were first sown in 2005, since when the Bodens – and their fantastic team – have encouraged wild flowers to seed and bloom in both their garden and around the farm. In late June, the gardens and meadows should be in full flower.

The morning is dedicated to exploring the magnificent grounds of Forde Abbey.

Founded in the 12th century by Cistercian monks, there has been a garden at Forde Abbey for over 900 years. The formal layout was begun by Sir Francis Gwyn in the early 18th century and the following century saw the addition of walled gardens and formal Victorian borders. For the last three generations, the gardens have been in the careful stewardship of the Roper family and during his lifetime, Geoffrey Roper planted more than 350,000 trees on the estate. The vast walled kitchen garden is an absolute delight.

After lunch at Holm, its menu driven by the seasons, the environment and its locality in the beautiful Somerset countryside, we head to the handsome village of Martock. Here we visit Fergus and Louise Dowding's secret garden at Yews Farm, described in Gardens Illustrated as 'a theatrical paradise'. This is a playful garden packed with a menagerie of topiary beasts, swathes of self-sown umbellifers and a layout that entices you to explore what Frederic magazine called 'its flow of quirkily shaped box topiary nestling under verdurous bay, quince, and hawthorn trees, its towering licorice root and delicate Mexican daisies, and its scattered softness epitomizing cottage planting.'

“I’ll point the baton here and there, but the way that everything grows and pulls together is up to the plants and not me,' Louise has said, with typical modesty. 'It is often so much better than I could have possibly imagined, like a kind of magic.”

This morning we head to a garden located in one of the most beautiful landscapes in the West Country, Devon's Blackdown Hills.

The stunning garden surrounding medieval South Wood Farm was first conceived by Professor Clive Potter, with the designer Arne Maynard helping him bring the garden together into a cohesive design. The result, in its owner’s words, is ‘a garden that slowly melts into the landscape’, in perfect harmony with its surrounding landscape and the medieval building at its centre.

We will enjoy a splendid picnic lunch, prepared for us by our cooks Caroline and Claire, in the grounds at South Wood.

In the afternoon you are free to explore further this wonderful corner of west Dorset. A walk along the nearby hollow way of Hell Lane - memorably described by nature writer Robert Macfarlane as "the view down a rifled barrel; an eye to the keyhole; a glimpse into the shade world" - or a trip to Lyme Regis are excellent options. 

We end the day back in Symondsbury, at the specialist plant nursery of Charles Chesshire. As well as curating this spectacular nursery, Charles has designed gardens at Burford House, consulted at Sudeley Castle gardens and is restoring the park and gardens at Lydney Park. The nursery is also home to Charles’s extensive collection of herbaceous and itoh peonies.

This morning we visit Farrs, the Beaminster home of the furniture maker John Makepeace and his wife Jenny, to explore two strikingly different but equally enchanting gardens.

John has created a landscape of order and precision, featuring clipped monumental topiary and precisely planted grass borders. Yet pass through a door into the internal walled garden and you enter Jenny’s world of carefully curated colourful chaos; a true plants woman’s paradise.

Lunch is overlooking the cliffs and Chesil Beach at the Seaside Boarding House.

Created by the artist John Hubbard and his wife Caryl, and justly compared to Sissinghurst and Hidcote, the garden at Chilcombe is a paradise in every sense, composed of linked enclosures all hidden away in the hills behind Chesil Beach. The main walled garden is divided into a series of rooms by pleached apple trees and sculpted yew hedges.  Each of these intimate spaces invites you to stop and admire the plantsmanship and love that went in to its creation.

After breakfast we leave for Ashington, the 16th-century home of Julian and Isabel Bannerman, garden designers by appointment to the Prince of Wales. In his introduction to their book Landscape of Dreams, the King described the pair as “worthy heirs of William Kent, one of the greatest and most creative of early eighteenth century designers”. As well as the King’s gardens at Highgrove, the dynamic duo have created the famous gardens at Trematon Castle and Houghton Hall. With towering yews echoing the old church, Ashington’s inspiring gardens are in fact brand new, created from rough turf during lockdown as ‘a joyous cross between a Kate Greenaway illustration and a medieval Book of Hours, with a nod to Alice in Wonderland’.

Lunch is at the much-loved Ilchester Arms, in our home village of Symondsbury.

We travel on to the home of fabled designer Jasper Conran. One of England’s loveliest smaller houses, Bettiscombe Manor has a garden to match, with orchards, mellow brick enclosures, and broad beds flanking an unforgettable view of the Vale, looking down to the sea. We have an exclusive invitation to visit in the afternoon, to hear about Jasper’s design principles and the work that has gone into creating this magical English garden.

We return to the Old Rectory for a valedictory dinner.

After breakfast, we leave Symondsbury Old rectory, bidding a fond farewell to Dorset - perhaps, like so many G&T Gardeners, yet vowing to return!

Those travelling on by rail will be taken to meet the late morning train at Dorchester South.