Best UK pubs The Dorset Arms Buckhurst Park Sussex tatler.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tatler.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Louisa Parker Bowles
It certainly does seem that a dazzling variety of plants want to grow across the 4,000-acre estate – and have done for centuries, thanks to green-fingered marquesses past and present. William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne (who became the 1st Marquess of Lansdowne in 1784) commissioned Capability Brown to design the 1,000-acre park in 1762 for a fee of 30 guineas – roughly £5,500 today. The undulating landscape is dotted with perfectly positioned oak and beech trees and a 700-species-strong arboretum. The south-facing Terrace Gardens, which today are edged with box hedging and filled with formal beds of seasonal tulips, alliums, Corinda geraniums and fragrant roses, were added by the 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, to remind him of his time in Italy. But it is the Woodland Gardens, which the 3rd Marquess laid out in 1854, planted with 300 rare hybrids of rhododendrons, magnolias and azaleas, that would delight his soil-savvy successors
Anne De La Warr and Julia Cradwick
William Sackville, 11th Earl De La Warr, wants the designation ‘sausage-maker’ added to his entry in Debrett’s. It is perhaps a surprising ambition for an old Etonian nobleman whose family seat, Buckhurst Park in East Sussex, is one of the most historically significant in the country. ‘He’s obsessed with his sausage company,’ laughs his wife, Anne, Countess De La Warr. ‘His interests are flat racing, pedigree Sussex cattle, his sausage company and his pub, The Dorset Arms.’ And Anne’s interests? Gardens and Shetland ponies, both of which she nurtures beautifully.
TTL Video
Miranda, Duchess of Beaufort’s cottage garden on the Badminton estate in Gloucestershire is a most enchanting place. Its many layers of history have shaped the landscape and elegant planting combinations to wonderful effect. It could be the fulsome year-round flowering of the rambling
Rosa ‘Debutante’ growing over an arch with
Clematis ‘Prince Charles’ that begins to stir the senses; or the view through the stone arch towards double borders with the estate beyond. Of course, there’s the summer house and the perfectly positioned topiary, as well as the duchess’s revered tulips. But really it’s the sentiment behind it all that best encapsulates the spirit here. ‘This garden is really a memorial to my late husband, David,’ the duchess tells