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Philip Packer designed the formal pleasure gardens in 1674, having recently finished building his new house. For the following three hundred years the gardens were unseen except by a favoured few but are now open for the public to enjoy.
The formal gardens are divided into a series of outside rooms, together with extensive herbaceous borders, designed to provide views from the house. The beauty of the formal gardens at Groombridge lies in their structure, including the walls, gates, pathways, stone steps, urns and pools.
Vibrant colour and imaginative planting provide interest throughout the seasons, from drifts of daffodils, tulips and blossom in spring, to the stunning displays of the herbaceous borders in summer, the white rose garden featuring an exquisite blend of 20 different varieties of white roses. This is followed in autumn by the hot reds and golds of perennial asters, sunflowers and dahlias and the dramatic leaf colours.
On the steep hills beyond the formal gardens lies the more recently created enchanted forest, with mysterious themed gardens combined with adventure playgrounds, to entertain the younger visitors.
I found the two contrasting aspects of the formal gardens and the Enchanted Forest at odds with one another and personally found no interest in the latter, but then I am not a teenager!
Groombridge is located 4 miles south west of Tunbridge Wells on the B2110.
| *Link to official site for viewing Visitor Information* |
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