Coton Manor Gardens in springtime

If you conjure up an image of a quintessential English house and garden you’ll imagine something close to Coton Manor House Gardens.

It’s located roughly halfway between Rugby and Northampton near the Northampton town of Guilsborough.

The seventeenth century manor house sits at the top of a gentle slope which covers 10 acres of gardens.

The gardens were extensively modelled and designed in 1925. They remain largely the same today and are still owned and managed by the same family.

In fact the charm of Coton Manor Gardens is that you sense that it’s still a real home. From the moment you arrive you sense the presence of the owners whose pride and joy in their gardens is immediately evident.

They perfectly combine and blend formal gardens which natural meadows, woodlands, streams and borders.

As well as the garden, there’s a superb café that offers light lunches and refreshments in the courtyard and the plant shop is a treasure to behold. Even if you are not buying, it’s a great place to walk through and enjoy.

Whatever time of year you visit – it’s open from April through to the end of September – it’s pretty as a picture and has, quite rightly, won the Nations Favourite Garden Award.

We visited during on Easter Sunday. The spring flowers looked magnificent with cowslips, daffodils and snake’s head flitillarias blanketing the slopped meadows.

Next month (May) the bluebell woods will look fantastic and the larger borders will begin to bloom. And from mid and late summer the roses will come to the fore.

Throughout the summer there is a magnificent summer meadow to wander through.

The Gardens are open Tuesday to Saturday from 1 April to the end of September (plus Bank Holiday weekends).

Coton Manor, Near Guilsborough, Northamptonshire, NN6 8RQ www.cotonmanor.co.uk 01604 740219