Gardens to visit in Worcestershire

Worcestershire provides some of the country’s loveliest scenery. With the Cotswolds to the south-east, the Malverns and the Shropshire Hills to the west and several notable rivers, including the Avon, the Severn and Teme running through it, this is a fertile, bucolic landscape that’s perfect for exploration and very conducive to agriculture. 

The Vale of Evesham is home to miles of fruit orchards and vegetable crops, which thrive on the region’s alluvial soils. The year begins in spring, with Evesham’s British Asparagus Festival; in July and August, the Georgian town of Pershore turns purple for its Plum Festival.

But it’s not all fruit and vegetables here. Broadway is a gorgeous chocolate-box village filled with independent shops, galleries and places to eat and often referred to as the ‘Jewel of the Cotswolds’. To the north, the county town of Worcester holds sway: Worcester Cathedral is the burial site of King John. Malvern, to the west, is the birthplace of Sir Edward Elgar. Download a map of The Elgar Route from visitthemalverns.org, which leads you around the composer’s most beloved sites. 

Near Worcester, Spetchley Park is a 30-acre Victorian paradise boasting an enviable collection of rare plant treasures, surrounded by glorious countryside and a deer park. A garden of contrasts, Spetchley combines formal clipped hedges, rose beds and sweeping lawns with tumbling herbaceous borders, walls adorned with rampant climbers and winding paths that lead visitors from the quintessentially English to the unmistakably Mediterranean.

Autumn sees a mass of asters at Old Court Nursery and The Picton Garden near Malvern. And no visit to Worcestershire is complete without a stop at splendid Morton Hall, famous for its Tulip