A gardens weekend in the Cotswolds: Hidcote, Sezincote and the north by car

The north Cotswolds hold five great gardens within about 7 miles of each other, and two days by car sees them all: Batsford Arboretum, Sezincote and Bourton House on the A44 west of Moreton-in-Marsh on the first day, Hidcote and Kiftsgate above Chipping Campden on the second. Base yourself in Campden, start on a Friday, because two of the gardens are shut at weekends, and keep the second day for the Sunday, because Kiftsgate never opens on a Friday or Saturday; the Saturday between is free for Campden itself. Come between April and September, when all five are open. Midweek, a Wednesday and a Thursday also work: all five open on a Wednesday.

Below the plan are the swaps by season: snowdrops at Colesbourne and Painswick in February, June for the roses, late summer for Bourton House and Buscot Park, and October for Westonbirt's maples. Every garden here has a listing of ours with its hours and prices, checked against its own website in October 2026, and our guide to the great gardens of the Cotswolds has its history.

Why this route

The gardens cluster, and the opening days decide the order. Sezincote opens only from Wednesday to Friday and on bank holiday Mondays, keeping its weekends for weddings, and Bourton House opens from Tuesday to Friday and not on public holidays, so they go on the Friday. Batsford opens every day, and as the earliest to open it starts the day. Hidcote and Kiftsgate fill Sunday, with Hidcote at opening, when it is quietest, and Kiftsgate after lunch, since it opens only at noon (2pm in April).

The five are different enough to fill two days without repeating. Batsford is a wild garden in the Japanese taste turned arboretum, Sezincote a water garden that runs down a valley past a temple and a bridge with Brahmin bulls, Bourton House a late-summer garden of borders and pots, Hidcote the Arts and Crafts garden of outdoor rooms, and Kiftsgate a garden made by three generations of one family, known for its rose.

Where to base yourself

Chipping Campden, for two nights. It is 10 minutes from Hidcote and 15 from Bourton-on-the-Hill, and its High Street is worth an evening walk. The Eight Bells, a fourteenth-century pub by the church, has six rooms, fires and real ale, though not for children under six and with two nights at weekends. The Noel Arms on the High Street has parking and accessible rooms, and Cotswold House on the Square has a spa. Our page of places to stay in Chipping Campden has the rest.

Friday: Batsford, Sezincote and Bourton House

Batsford opens at 9.30am from Monday to Saturday. Algernon Freeman-Mitford laid out a wild garden here from 1886, with a watercourse, a rest house and a bronze Buddha, and the second Lord Dulverton turned it into an arboretum from 1956. April is its month for magnolias and late October for maples, and the Garden Terrace Café is by the garden centre.

Sezincote is across the A44. Use the front drive opposite Batsford, not the farm entrance a satnav may choose. The house, by booked tour, and the Orangery Tearoom open only from May to September, on the garden's days. The garden follows a stream past a temple to Surya, the Snake Pond and an Indian bridge with Brahmin bulls. The banks are steep, the paths gravel and the stone bridges irregular, and dogs are not allowed. Lunch at the Horse and Groom, a few minutes away at Bourton-on-the-Hill, and go down the village to Bourton House, where Mr and Mrs R Paice made the garden from a neglected wilderness after they bought the house in 1983. Under-16s go free there, and a walk crosses the seven-acre pasture opposite, planted with specimen trees in 1994 and 1995.

Sunday: Hidcote and Kiftsgate

Be at Hidcote when it opens, at 10am in our October check, since it fills from mid-morning. Lawrence Johnston began it in 1907 as a series of rooms divided by hedges and walls, with loose planting inside a formal plan, and the National Trust has owned it since 1948. Follow the brown signs from Mickleton, because satnav can send you down a farm track. The car park is free, with EV chargers. Eat in Winthrop's Café inside the garden, or picnic by the car park.

Kiftsgate is half a mile along the lane. Heather Muir began it after 1920, her daughter Diany Binny and granddaughter Anne Chambers kept and extended it, and it gives its name to the Kiftsgate rose, which flowers in June and July. It opens on its own calendar, published each season, from noon (2pm in April), so check the day before you rely on it. If it is shut, give the afternoon to Campden's Court Barn, which tells the town's Arts and Crafts story, or walk up Dover's Hill for the view.

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The gardens by season

The plan above is for April to September. At other times of year, swap gardens in from the rest of the region, most of them a drive of an hour or less from Campden:

• February: Colesbourne Park, the snowdrop garden, on eight weekend days in late January and February by ticket bought in advance, £15.50 a head (2027) with school-age children free, the Rococo Garden at Painswick, booked ahead, and Cerney House, open 364 days a year
• April and May: Batsford's magnolias, Kiftsgate's bluebell wood and Hidcote's spring bulbs, as the private gardens open in April
• June: the Kiftsgate rose, Hidcote's borders and Miserden near Stroud, open Wednesday to Sunday from April, with under-16s free
• August and September: Bourton House at its fullest, and Buscot Park near Lechlade, open on calendar afternoons to the end of September, for Peto's water garden
• October: Westonbirt for the maples, booked ahead from late September to mid-November, and Batsford in the last weeks of the month

A good second day in the south takes the Rococo Garden at 10am, Miserden at midday and Cerney House in the afternoon, three gardens within 20 minutes of each other between Painswick and Cirencester. Miserden opens only from Wednesday to Sunday, from April, and the Rococo Garden from the snowdrops in late winter to the start of November.

Swaps for rain or a quieter day

In rain, keep Batsford, where the café is a refuge, and swap Sezincote's slippery banks for Snowshill Manor, whose house of collections is under cover, with a garden of terraced rooms outside. Hidcote closes in high wind, and Batsford may too, so check both on a stormy morning.

For a quieter day, come midweek: Hidcote and Kiftsgate are both open on a Wednesday. Cerney House, open 364 days a year unless the forecast is bad, for £7 an adult, is the quiet choice.

The honest limits

This weekend is short on the step-free. About a third of Hidcote's garden has a step-free route, about a third of Kiftsgate suits wheelchairs, about a quarter of Batsford does if you keep to the drive, Bourton House is 60 to 70 per cent accessible and Sezincote is hard going. Ring each garden about access before you go.

The private gardens close for the winter. Kiftsgate shuts at the end of September, Bourton House in mid-October and Sezincote at the end of November, so from December to February only Batsford, Hidcote, Westonbirt and Cerney House among these are open, at lower prices where they charge. None of the five has a bus to the gate; Batsford is the one you can reach on foot, about 1.7 miles and 35 minutes on the Monarch's Way from Moreton-in-Marsh.