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Please check with garden owners or their website to confirm current dates open
12th Mar - 30th Oct, 11-5, Sat - Wed
Wider estate open all year, dawn till dusk.
Open BH Mons & Good Friday. Closes dusk if earlier. Estate open all year, dawn-dusk. Last admission 30mins before closing
Small coaches only, by arrangement (max. of 7.5m, 30 people).
29th Mar, 11am-4pm, workshop 11.30am and 2.30pm, booking advisable 24th July 4th Oct
Spring June and Sept
Spring bulbs Herbaceous borders
Gift Aid Admission (Standard Admission prices in brackets)
House and garden: adult £8.10 (£7.30), child £4.10 (£3.70), family £20.30 (£18.30).
Garden only: adult £5.75 (£5.20), child £2.95 (£2.65
Dogs on lead but only in car park and on river walk. See own website for listing of Special Events
Parts of Manor may be under repair.
Plant Fair -9th May, 11am - 4pm
End of Season Plant Sale - 26th September, 11am - 4pm
Intimate manor house with Arts & Crafts-style garden; Enchanting manor house in the depths of rural Somerset; Tudor great hall and 14th-century chapel; Home to medieval herbalist Henry Lyte; The gardens still grow the plants Lyte cultivated; Estate walks
Kingsdon Inn, Kingsdon
The garden with its multitude of shades of green and low yew hedges beautifully sets off the golden colours of the house and walls crouching for shelter in the flat Somerset farmland. Sir Walter Jenner planned a series of enclosures with simple but very effective themes which Christopher Hussey called 'a necklace of garden rooms strung on green corridors'. The main beds display a colour sequence with Berberis, Achillea, Aster, Purple Sage and many floribunda roses leading into the White Garden with 'Iceberg' roses and Philadelphus.
Sweeping lawns, more yew hedges, clumps of pink and white Rugosa roses and an ornamental orchard which, with pairs of crab apple trees, medlars, quinces and walnuts is undersown with daffodils and wildflowers, looks spectacular in Spring. Further on enclosures with a hornbeam tunnel, a tranquil pool, a lawn with a stone seat and pair of strawberry trees make this a lovely garden for quiet contemplation and satisfaction.
Lytes Cary was the home of the Lyte family from 1286 until the late 18th century. One of the family, Henry Lyte, translated Doden's text on herbs, the 'Cruedboek', from the Flemish in 1578. A copy of this is on display in the Great Hall. Sir Walter Jenner acquired the property in 1907 and set about restoring the house and transforming the garden. The National Trust used his design after the property was bequeathed to them in 1949 and began replanning and replanting the main beds in a scheme reminiscent of an Arts & Crafts style garden.