The topiary garden
The world's oldest surviving topiary garden, laid out from 1694 and barely altered since, with its giant clipped shapes.
Simaron from Lower Saxony, Germany — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Ian Greig — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Barbara Carr — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Barbara Carr — CC BY-SA 2.0
Yews the size of small houses have been clipped here since 1694 into umbrellas, pyramids, chess pieces and stacked discs, and some of them are more than three hundred years old and still get their annual haircut by hand every autumn. This is the garden at Levens Hall, the oldest topiary garden in the world still in its original layout, and it is what people come for far more than the house. It sits in the village of Levens about five miles south of Kendal, at the southern gateway to the Lake District and roughly half an hour by car from Windermere. Guillaume Beaumont, who had worked in the gardens of King James II, drew the plan, and one family has tended it ever since without ripping it up in the eighteenth-century fashion that flattened most of England's formal gardens. So what you see is very nearly the original drawing: flower beds set between the green shapes, beech hedges, and a ha-ha dividing the garden from the deer park across the road. The house is an Elizabethan manor grown around a defensive pele tower of about 1350, and the Bagot family still live in it. Its panelled rooms, with their moulded plaster ceilings and Spanish Cordoba-leather walls, are handsome but done in half an hour, and the many steps and narrow doorways mean it is not accessible to wheelchairs or mobility aids, with pushchairs equally impractical. The garden, by contrast, takes pushchairs happily on its gravel and grass paths. The 2026 season runs from 27 March to 8 November, seven days a week with no closing day, the garden open 10am to 5pm (last entry 4pm) and the house 11am to 3.30pm (last entry 3pm). An adult house-and-garden ticket is £17.30, the garden alone £13, and a family ticket (two adults and up to three children) £42.75, with under-fives free; there is no need to book ahead. After 3 October parts of the garden close to protect the paths and prices drop, and weekday house entry may be by guided tour only; in winter the whole place shuts. There is a cafe, Levens Kitchen, a gift shop, and a playground with slides and climbing frames for under-twelves with picnic benches beside it, while across the road the deer park has marked walking paths, black fallow deer and Bagot goats, which is what children actually remember. Is it worth the trip? For anyone who cares about gardens, without hesitation, and May to September is the time, when the beds are in full colour. For those who came to the Lakes for fells and boats, it is a pleasant two-hour stop, made easier by sitting just off junction 36 of the M6, so it slots into the drive in or out of the region, with free parking. In July and August it stays far quieter than the Windermere shoreline, which is a virtue in itself.
The world's oldest surviving topiary garden, laid out from 1694 and barely altered since, with its giant clipped shapes.
Panelled rooms, Spanish leather and moulded plaster around a fourteenth-century tower, done in half an hour.
Slides and climbing frames for under-twelves, plus the deer park across the road with marked walking paths.
Levens, Kendal LA8 0PD
The garden is the real reason to come, and the £13 garden ticket is enough for most visitors, especially with small children since the house is all steps and narrow doorways. Add the house (£4.30 more) if you like historic interiors or it is raining.
Yes, if you want a quiet day away from the lakeside crowds: half an hour by car, free parking, no queues and no booking. It is not a substitute for the lakes themselves, though, so make it a stop on the way in or out rather than a whole day.