It would be hard to overestimate the entrancing effect on the visitor of this wonderful garden. Lady Londonderry triumphantly succeeded in creating one of the great gardens of Europe, and one which no visitor to Ireland should miss. From the extravagantly planted Italian Garden near the house, where you may begin your tour, to the 15 acres of rhododendrons through which you return, you will find an almost unbelievable variety of plants, shrubs and trees sheltered to the south by woods and benefiting from the adjacent sea lough, nearness to the Irish Sea and the Gulf Stream.

Lady Londonderry took advice from Sir John Ross of Rostrevor, Co. Down and from Sir Herbert Maxwell of Montreith, Scotland but she has imbued the place with her own idiosyncratic character and striking sense of humour, as illustrated by the figures on the Dodo Terrace in animal form some of which were politicians, members of her family, members of the armed forces and so on. Nearby is the Mairi Garden illustrating the nursery rhyme, Mairi, Mairi, quite contrary in cockle shells, silver bells (campanulas) and Pretty Maids (saxifrage) all in a row.

But the garden is supreme in its variety, not only is there the grand sunken Italian parterre, but also a Spanish parterre beyond it, a tiled garden house, a further Sunken garden to the West of the house based on a design sent to her by Gertrude Jekyll, the famous garden of Irish symbolism and the wooded walks, lawns and the extraordinary burial ground with its white stag to bear you to heaven. In this garden you may feel that you are already there.