Instagram/ Mapperton Estate
Mapperton House, the family seat of the Earl and Countess of Sandwich (who live in the Old Rectory on site), and home to their daughter-in-law, the glamorous American Viscountess Hinchingbrook, and her husband and children, has been voted the best garden in Britain in a public poll by Historic Houses.
Boasting 15 acres, featuring formal Italianate gardens, as well as an orangery, an arboretum and a croquet lawn, the Dorset-based country pile drew almost 3,000 votes of the 12,000 cast. There are also formal ponds, a shrub garden and even a secret garden.
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Instagram/ Mapperton Estate
As Mapperton s official website explains: Tucked into a steep north-south combe, the gardens descend from the very formal topiary gardens and Orangery to the north to an arboretum, beyond which the land unfolds in small, steep valleys and headlands down to the sea five miles away.