Historic Gardens of Oxford

Oxfordshire, more than any other English county, has historic gardens and landscapes of all periods and in all styles, ranging from the medieval remains of the Bower of Henry II’s mistress Rosamund Clifford at Woodstock, in what is now Blenheim Park, to the celebrated French chef, Raymond Blanc’s inspired series of garden enclosures for culinary and ornamental use at Great Milton. The county has a wealth of eccentric and lively garden structures – tree houses, viewing temples, boathouses, gazebos, root houses, tea-house bridges and cold baths – and Oxford itself has at least ten significant college gardens. But Oxfordshire’s greatest gardens are those of the twentieth century: Geoffrey Jellicoe’s green formalism at Ditchley Park, Prue Leith’s formal potager at Chastleton Glebe, Tom Stuart-Smith’s modern eclecticism at Broughton Grange, Brenda Colvin’s creation of the modern suburban garden in her effortlessly flowing lines at Little Peacocks, Filkins.