Highgrove

Today we went to the home of King Charles and Queen Camilla.

Highgrove lies in Tetbury, Gloucestershire. On the way we passed many beautiful villages all featuring buildings made out of the lovely golden coloured stone. Bibury is probably the most famous. It is very old and was full of tourists.

Highgrove is not signposted and was a bit tricky to find but we got there eventually. Not allowed to take photos except in the restaurant area and car parking area.

The garden tour was really good. The guide had lots of royal anecdotes and stories as well as a wealth of knowledge about the plants and garden’s history. Shame we couldn’t take photos but the book on Highgrove will provide a few.

The King has a very natural approach and leaves nature to do its own thing once the designs have been planted out. He has turned farm land surrounding the house into many rooms of gardens used for different purposes. The bees and the chickens have very glamorous ‘homes’ and indeed the chicken house has been nicknamed ‘Cluckingham Palace’.

Walled gardens feature and children’s gardens still include William and Harry’s cubby. A really abundant kitchen garden, a stumpery, trees from all over the world, many water features, shrubberies and picking flower gardens come together to make a beautiful and peaceful environment. Highly recommend to visit if you ever get the opportunity.

After the tour it was back to the lovely dining room for lunch - which was delicious. We visited the gift shop before leaving and amazingly Candice ran into some friends, Lucy and Ray Zelouf, from Melbourne. Their son was in the same year as Hugo at school. Whist the garden looked really good, Lucy would like to come back in Spring.

We drove home via Cheltenham, stopped off at the Holland Cooper (country wear) complex at Charlton Kings where we had a drink, bought some soup for dinner and left for a night in at the little Straw Cottage with the thatched roof in Adderbury.Read more