My Favourite Place: Abbotsbury Gardens
Abbotsbury is a garden that ignites the imagination on so many levels. When my children were tiny it was a favourite place to play – to explore the winding paths, get lost in the secret forest and play hide and seek in the stands of giant bamboo. It’s filled with incredible plants: you can go on a world tour, have a botanic adventure, a landscape adventure and an adventure in time, all at once.
It’s a garden full of surprises. It’s a subtropical landscape hidden in a Dorset dell just a mile inland from the Jurassic Coast. You might stumble on a fallen oak, carved with animals, or a scary rope bridge inspired by Head Gardener Steve Griffith’s plant-hunting travels though the Himalayas – he’s one of the fantastic head gardeners I feature in my book.
My favourite place is sitting in the Chinese tea house. If you look down you see the Himalayan Grove, with its amazing acer collection in every shade of green. If you then raise your eyes, you can see through artful holes cut in the canopy to a mysterious chapel brooding on top of an Arthurian tor.
St Catherine’s Chapel is the only remnant of Abbotsbury’s Benedictine monastery – long used by sailors as a landmark from the sea. St Catherine is the patron saint of wisdom, teachers and librarians – and also of spinsters. There are little holes you can put your knees into and make a prayer for a husband!
It’s a garden that’s very rich in all the senses. You can smell eucalyptus and katsura and hear the kookaburras near the entrance make a braying sound. There are waxy begonias and puya, which is a strange plant that’s shiny like titanium.
There’s a great sense of the different habitats. From the top of the Magnolia Walk, you can see right along Dorset’s Jurassic Coast and at the bottom of the dell are pools and streams with great, jungly stands of gunnera and a primeval atmosphere. There are also sunny Mediterranean and Australasian areas, and because Roy Lancaster takes an interest, there are some really rare plants. So, while it’s great for families and dog walkers, it’s great for serious botanists, too!
■ Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens, Buller's Way, Abbotsbury, Weymouth DT3 4LA; www.abbotsburytourism.co.uk/gardens.