England Horticultural Tour

Your driver will meet you in the Arrivals Hall at London Heathrow (he will have a sign with your name on it) and provide private luxury chauffeur service to your chosen hotel.

The Goring is a classic English boutique hotel with ample royal heritage. Opened in 1910, the property has intricate sculpted details and unusually wide hallways, said to have been designed to allow the free passage of ladies' ball gowns.

The Goring offers five-star hospitality with abundant luxury, and its refined elegance is demonstrated through details such as the original Edwardian architecture and bespoke silk wallpaper. With exemplary service and exquisite food, this is undoubtedly one of London's finest hotels.

Check-in is at 3:00 PM. Settle into your accommodation and prepare for your week-long journey through England's most spectacular gardens and horticultural treasures.

It may surprise people to know that London is one of the greenest cities in Europe. Forty percent of its area is dedicated to parks and public spaces and while the great parks are well known and loved by Londoners and visitors alike, few people know of the many small and remarkable spaces that are dotted throughout the city.

With a history spanning five centuries, this half-day walking tour encompasses old and new gardens and public spaces to see the best of this small pocket of London's lesser-known gems. Several of these have been created in the bombed-out ruins of Wren's churches, including the award-winning St Dunstan's in the East whose dramatic remains have been engulfed in a wide range of wall shrubs and climbers to create a beautiful garden with a haunting atmosphere.

Postman's Park, beloved as a lunchtime venue for City office workers is another small space with a story; you will also discover Barber Surgeon's garden along the way. Lunch is at the former Carthusian Monastery, The Charterhouse, with its country garden just beyond the City boundary.

Continuing the floral theme, enjoy a private two-hour workshop with the florist charged to decorate the Royal Wedding. Choose what you want to learn about, be it bouquets, wedding designs, large-scale installations, how to quickly pull together dinner party flowers, or make the most out of a bunch of weekly flowers.

Used as a fortress against French invasion from 1200 to Napoleonic times, the town of Rye was built on a granite outcrop known as the Citadel and reinforced by a castle and town wall. Together these defensive features made Rye one of the Cinque Ports, a confederation of maritime towns and villages spread throughout Kent and East Sussex.

Centuries later, Rye still boasts cobbled lanes, mysterious passageways, crooked half-timbered Tudor buildings, and one of the oldest inns in England. But one thing has changed: once on the coast, the south of England's quaintest town is now two miles inland!

Great Dixter was the family home of gardener and gardening writer Christopher Lloyd – it was the focus of his energy and enthusiasm and fuelled over 40 years of books and articles. Now under the stewardship of Fergus Garrett and the Great Dixter Charitable Trust, Great Dixter is an historic house, a garden, a centre of education, and a place of pilgrimage for horticulturists from across the world.

Sissinghurst Castle Garden, in the Weald of Kent, England was created in the early 1930s by Vita Sackville-West, poet and gardening writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. It is among the most famous gardens in England and is designated a Grade I listed structure.

The garden comprises a series of 'rooms', amounting to ten in number, and was one of the earliest examples of this gardening style. Over seventy years after Vita and Harold created 'a garden where none was', Sissinghurst remains a major influence on horticultural thought and practice.

Before entering the Flower Show, walk the streets of Chelsea and enjoy the alternative flower show Chelsea in Bloom. Every year, this competition showcases floral displays reflecting the participating retailers' interpretation of the year's chosen theme in their own unique style and transforms the streets of Chelsea with breath-taking floral displays.

The annual competition has grown dramatically each year with Chelsea's best retailers, restaurants and hotels adorning themselves with creative designs to compete for the coveted awards.

World-renowned, glamorous and quintessentially British, the Chelsea Flower Show is a truly unique and unforgettable day out. Be dazzled by colourful flowers, innovative garden designs and amazing horticultural exhibits at this prestigious flower show, which transforms the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea with stunning horticultural displays by world-renowned garden designers, plant specialists, florists and nurseries.

The Chelsea Flower Show is the garden design equivalent to Paris Fashion Week, attracting more than 150,000 visitors each year, including members of the Royal Family.

We will arrange a private hospitality package, which will include a private lounge and food and refreshment throughout your visit. Your visit will be on one of the pre-opening days, before the public are allowed in.

Inspired by the Baroque palaces of Europe, Petworth House is an extraordinary ancestral seat created by just one family over 900 years. The 17th-century building comprises grand state rooms designed to display the taste, lifestyle and artistic patronage of successive generations and displaying the finest art collection owned by the National Trust.

It includes major works by Van Dyck, Turner, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Titian, Bosch and many others. A particular highlight is the earliest English globe in existence dating back to 1592. This remarkable collection reflects a journey of survival and success through the Tudor Reformation, Gunpowder Plot and the Napoleonic Wars.

Just across the courtyard from the grand State Rooms, the servants' quarters by contrast offer a glimpse of life 'below stairs', allowing the visitor to imagine the hustle and bustle of servant life. But just as impressive as the building itself, is the beautifully landscaped estate and park, with its serpentine lake. It is the work of the celebrated Georgian landscape architect Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, 'England's greatest gardener.'

English sparkling wine is now taking on the best of France's champagne offering and winning international awards. On this visit to Nyetimber, one of England's top producers, you will be given a private tour of the estate and a chance to taste some of its best produce.

Your private tour will begin with a warm welcome in the White Barn by a dedicated Brand Ambassador, who will inform you about the long and fascinating history of Nyetimber. An exclusive tour of the Nyetimber Estate and vineyards will provide the opportunity to walk amongst some of the oldest vines in England, whilst enjoying stunning views across the rolling hills of the South Downs.

The 15th Century Medieval Barn will provide the perfect setting for your tasting of Nyetimber's celebrated sparkling wines, including the gold-medal winning Classic Cuvee Multi-Vintage, Rosé Multi-Vintage and Cuvee Chérie Multi-Vintage.

One of London's most visually appealing markets, Columbia Road overflows with bucketfuls of beautiful flowers every Sunday. Market traders line the narrow street selling flowers, houseplants, herbs, bulbs and shrubs.

Head behind the stalls and down side streets to find cute cafés, independent restaurants, delis, shops, antique dealers, vintage stalls and small galleries, many of which follow the market's opening hours. It is one of the few streets in the country composed primarily of independent boutiques.

Small art galleries sit next to cup cake shops, vintage clothes stores, English and Italian delis, garden and antique shops. The shops have a common thread, a love of the flower market and its history, and a refusal to be dictated to by a retail world where the sense of fun has all but gone.

Spend the day exploring this vibrant neighborhood, soaking in the colors, scents, and atmosphere of one of London's most beloved markets.

Once the capital of England, Winchester is a city with history around every corner. In the Great Hall, for example, you'll find a round table that claims to be King Arthur's, while the Hospital of St Cross is England's oldest continuing almshouse, with a medieval hall and Tudor cloister.

But Winchester is best known for its medieval cathedral. One of the largest in Europe, Winchester Cathedral is famously home to the Winchester Bible, the tomb of Jane Austen, and the bust of a deep-sea diver who worked underwater in the crypt from 1906 to 1911, underpinning the nave!

Set in the superb Hampshire countryside, Hinton Ampner is an elegant country house with an outstanding collection of furniture, paintings and objets d'art. Yet it is probably best known for its fine garden – widely acknowledged as a masterpiece of twentieth-century design – which blends a formal layout with informal plantings in a variety of pastel shades.

Outside, beautifully manicured lawns lead through avenues of sculptured topiary, past borders full of the heady scent of roses, to breathtaking views across the South Downs. But beware: the house is said to have a history of poltergeists!

Featured in countless gardening books, Bramdean House is best known for its mirror-image herbaceous borders that dazzle the eye in June and July. But there is still much to recommend it throughout the year, including carpets of spring snowdrops; a one-acre walled garden featuring prize-winning vegetables, fruit and flowers; a small arboretum; a wildflower meadow; and an enchanting boxwood castle.

The 5-acre garden is also home to an orchard under-planted with massed daffodils and an Apple House that dates from the early 1800s. Quite simply, one of the very best of English country gardens.

After a leisurely breakfast at The Goring (check-out is at 12:00 PM), your private chauffeur will provide luxury transfer to London Heathrow Airport for your international departure.

As you bid farewell to England, take with you unforgettable memories of spectacular gardens, hidden horticultural gems, and the timeless beauty of the English countryside.

End of services with memories to treasure forever from your extraordinary England Horticultural Tour.