The lake circuit
Three kilometres in which the view resets at every bend, from the Pantheon to the Temple of Apollo to the five-arched bridge.
Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). — CC BY-SA 4.0
In the middle of the eighteenth century a London banker, Henry Hoare II, set out to paint a classical landscape the size of a valley. He dammed the River Stour until it filled a lake, planted a Roman temple, a grotto and a five-arched bridge around the shore, and placed them so that no single spot ever reveals the whole picture at once. Forty years of work, from 1741 to 1780, produced Stourhead, often counted among the most beautiful gardens in England and one of the world's best-known examples of the 'English garden' that hides its artifice behind an air of nature. The visit is one circuit of roughly three kilometres around the lake, and every bend opens a fresh view: the domed Pantheon of 1753-54, the Temple of Apollo perched on its slope, the Bristol High Cross, a medieval monument carted here from the centre of Bristol in 1765. Children love the damp grotto and its statues. The path is gravelled but climbs, dips and takes in steps in places, so a pushchair copes on most of it and struggles on the rest. Allow fifteen to twenty minutes on foot from the car park to the lake before the circuit even begins. The Palladian house by Colen Campbell (1721-25), rebuilt after a fire in 1902, opens in season (mid-March to early November) usually 11:00-16:00 and holds Chippendale furniture and paintings, but it is a pleasant extra rather than the point; with limited time, the garden is the trip. On the far edge of the estate stands King Alfred's Tower, a brick folly of nearly 50 metres completed in 1772, open to climb (250 steps, small separate ticket) only at weekends and bank holidays from April to October and best reached by car rather than the 9 km round walk if you have a family in tow. The two golden seasons are May-June, when the rhododendrons blaze, and October, when the trees turn red and gold and the place gets very busy at weekends, with the car park sometimes full by noon. Adult admission is £23, children £11.50 and a family ticket (two adults, up to three children) £57.50, plus £4.50 parking for non-members of the National Trust; no advance booking is needed but a ticket is compulsory. The garden opens daily all year except Christmas Day, 09:30-16:30 from mid-February to the start of November and closing at 15:00 in winter, when an afternoon circuit is short, muddy and a good deal less radiant. From Bath the car is the only practical option: about 45 km south via the A36 and Warminster, roughly an hour, with no sensible public transport; the nearest station is Gillingham, about a quarter of an hour away by taxi.
Three kilometres in which the view resets at every bend, from the Pantheon to the Temple of Apollo to the five-arched bridge.
A dripping grotto with classical statues that children adore, and a medieval monument moved here from the heart of Bristol in 1765.
Late-spring rhododendrons and blazing autumn trees make a visit in season an entirely different experience.
Stourton, near Mere, Wiltshire BA12 6QD
Worth it if your children walk on their own: the lake circuit with the grotto and bridge will delight them more than any garden inside Bath. With a baby in a pushchair, or on a wet winter day when the garden shuts at three, the two hours of driving there and back weigh on the day and it is better left for a kinder season.
The garden is enough, and it is what people come for. One ticket covers house and garden (only King Alfred's Tower is a separate ticket), so go into the house if you have time and appetite for eighteenth-century furniture, but never cut the lake circuit short for it.