Exploring Winterbourne House & Gardens

Hi there everyone 😀

Hot on the tails of our visits to the very lovely Hidcote and Kiftsgate gardens with Mum & Dad back at the beginning of August ... there was another big garden visiting day out on the cards, this time with our good friends Jackie & Phil.

This time we were off to explore two gardens that were new to all of us ... Winterbourne House and the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, which are pretty much a stone's throw apart, with Winterbourne being located on the University of Birmingham campus.

Until we'd had a good look through our Gardeners' World 2 for 1 book I didn't even know that Winterbourne House existed and I have to tell you ... it ended up being an absolute treasure ... a
brilliant example of the arts and crafts style, which is my absolute favourite.

We were blessed with fabulous weather and first stop, as always, was the cafe for a breakfast pit stop, whilst we decided the plan of action.

We all agreed that it was definitely to be garden first, followed by a look in the house, before we moved on to the Botanical Gardens, where we were planning on having lunch. We started off by heading to the courtyard of old buildings that used to be the estate farm ...
This part of the garden was charming and really interesting. The farm buildings had all found new leases of life as toilets, a printing press, book shop and garden exhibition ...
From the old farm we wandered into the walled garden, which was absolutely spectacular. There were big flower beds, bursting with blooms, criss crossed with a mixture of gravel and grass pathways ... and the view of the house, with its intentionally wavy roofline, was just stunning ...


The views looking back at the farm were just as impressive ...
There was so much in flower ...
After a real good wander amongst the flowers we left the walled garden through the archway into the glasshouses and alpine garden. This too, was just lovely. Beautiful hydrangeas, agapanthus and lilies just dotted about, but looking fabulous ...

I've never really been a fan of carnivorous plants, but the glasshouse display was really impressive ... and colourful ... and didn't seem that gruesome ...
I absolutely loved the wavy red brick wall ...

From this part of the garden we could really get a sense of just how close we were to the university ... we could see the university's clock tower ...

To say the planting in this part of the garden was varied is a bit of an understatement. There really was all sorts to see ...

It was time to leave the agapanthus behind ...
... and we headed further down into the garden ...

We made our way along the rhododendron walk, which I'm sure would look spectacular in the spring, to the Japanese Bridge, where all was looking very lush and green ...
From here we carried on down to the extent of the garden, passing the magnolia border ... which is another spot that would be fabulous in the spring.

We about turned and headed back up across the lower lawn towards the house ...
... where it all became full of colour again ...

We made our way along the lower border which runs across the bottom of the top lawn ...

... and through into the winter garden, which led us up to a charming little courtyard at the side of the house, where we found an old well, complete with a leather bucket, surrounded by the biggest agapanthus ever ...

 

We were then back at the main terrace and back where we'd started ...

It was time to have a look round the inside of the house, which was light, bright, spacious, airy and, whilst I didn't take any photographs, it was very beautiful.

We had a quick look round the small gift shop before moving on to our next stop for lunch and the rest of the afternoon.

We'd all loved Winterbourne, it really is a hidden gem and if you get the chance to visit then do ... it is absolutely stunning and if you like the arts and crafts style, I just know that you will love this property as much as we did 😀

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