Thenford Gardens & Arboretum is open to visitors 19 days a year, starting in February with the Snowdrop days, right through to October.
Join the highly anticipated snowdrop walks and enjoy the extensive collection of over 600 different snowdrop species and cultivars.
Snowdrops have grown in Thenford’s woodlands and churchyard for decades, carpeting the ground with a wash of white flowers each February.
Lord and Lady Heseltine were encouraged by Henry and Carolyn Elwes of Colesbourne Park to broaden their collection of snowdrops in the Nineties. These were planted beneath the magnificent ash tree west of the walled garden. The ash tree acted as a nursery for a small collection of named cultivars until their numbers had increased.
Since May 2014, Deputy Head Gardener and Galanthophile Emma Thick has been instrumental in expanding the collection to its current size. Thenford currently grows over 600 different species and cultivars.
In recent years Thenford has focused on moving and dividing the existing clumps into better locations to create snowdrop walks through parts of the garden. The garden has been open for the snowdrop days in February since 2016.
Spread over seventy acres, Thenford arboretum features a collection of more than three thousand different trees and shrubs and extensive herbaceous borders, an alpine trough garden, a sculpture garden, a rose garden and a rill, as well as water gardens, medieval fish ponds and lakes.
Thenford has something for every gardening enthusiast. And two or three hours can easily be lost in a leisurely walk.
“Lord and Lady Heseltine have created a garden of major importance at Thenford, one of the most impressive, varied and fascinating to have been made over the last forty years anywhere in the world.”
—Charles Quest-Ritson in Country Life, March 2019
A visit to Thenford is a must for all gardening enthusiasts.