Where to walk it all off

Some of Britain’s most beautiful gardens are open over Christmas – perfect if you’ve overdone it on the turkey

Christmas may be the most wonderful t ime of the year, but if you feel overwhelmed by the prospect of days of eating, drinking and telly watching, then why not destress with a visit to one of the many beautiful gardens that are open over the holiday period.

In Cornwall, The Lost Gardens Of Heligan have 200 acres to explore, including the Jungle area with its exciting 30m rope bridge. There’s plenty to keep the whole family entertained and dogs (on a lead) are also welcome. Open daily except Christmas Day, 10am-5pm. Entry £13.50, children £6; heligan.com.

Mottisfont in Hampshire, famous for its rose garden, also has a delightful winter garden which has been planted since 2010. Enjoy the brightly coloured dogwood stems and the fragrance of winter honeysuckle, witch hazel and wintersweet. Open every day except 24 and 25 December, 10am-4pm. Entry £6.80, children £3.40, free to National Trust members; nationaltrust.org.uk.

Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire is a grand house built in the style of a French château. Its 165 acres of gardens include statuary, fountains and terraces. They take Christmas seriously here – the front of the house is illuminated and a light show of 9,000 frosted glass spheres snakes through the garden at dusk. Open Wednesday to Sunday (and Tuesday 27 December and Monday 2 January), 11am- 6pm, closed 24-26 December. Entry £18, children £9, free to NT members; nationaltrust.org.uk.

The ten acres of grounds at Aberglasney in Carmarthenshire are full of winter interest, with berried shrubs and witch hazels, carpets of hellebores and a yew tunnel. The atmospheric Ninfarium, with its glass atrium, houses exotic plants. Open daily except Christmas Day, 10.30am- 4pm. Entry £7.73, children free; aberglasney.org.

Created in the 1930s, the 35- acre Savill Garden in Surrey makes a feature of its winter colour. At ground level there are flowering bergenias, while the red and yellow stems of the dogwoods are eye-popping. Look out for Acer x conspicuum ‘Phoenix’, the snakebark maple, whose trunk and branches glow reddish orange in winter. Open daily except 24 and 25 December, 10am- 4.30pm. Entry is free until 28 February; theroyallandscape.co.uk.

The Winter Walk at the 68-acre RHS Garden Harlow Carr in Yorkshire is The rope bridge in The Lost

Gardens Of Heligan only ten years old, but is already making a big impact. Yews and evergreens create an attractive backdrop for the fiery- stemmed dogwoods and Salix irrorata, the blue stem willow. Don’t miss the grey bark and red flowers of Persian ironwood, Parrotia persica.

There are also fragrant winter shrubs such as sarcococca, and carpets of cyclamen and winter aconites. Open daily except Christmas Day, 9.30am4pm; entry £10, £5 for children, free to RHS members; rhs.org.uk.

At the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh the real draw in winter is the glasshouses. The magnificent Tropical Palm House was built in 1834 and the Alpine House is particularly rewarding, with a world- class collection of shrubs, orchids, succulents and bulbs. Open daily except Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, 10am- 4pm ( glasshouses close at 3pm); entry to garden free, entry to glasshouses £ 5.50, children free; rbge.org.uk.