Things to do in the garden at Charlecote Park

Two visitor exploring the garden with the Victorian summer house visible behind them and potted plants in bloom — There is always something new to spot in the gardens, from flowers to wildlife. | © National Trust Images/Chris Lacey

The garden at Charlecote Park reflects the passion of the Lucy family, in particular Mary Elizabeth Lucy (1803 - 1890), who could often be seen tending the borders in the early hours. Discover the formal riverside parterre that she loved, peer inside the Victorian summerhouse, and find seasonal highlights in the garden all year round.

Autumn highlights in the garden

In autumn you’ll find us weeding most days (of course!), perched on a cherry picker to prune the yew trees and wisteria in Green Court, clearing the Parterre and planting out all the spring bedding, as well as tidying lots and lots of fallen leaves as the season progresses.

It looks a little tatty, but we leave a lot of the dead seedheads on the plants in the borders – birds such as goldfinches will love the seeds, and blue tits will find insects hiding in the little crevices.

While autumn foliage brings beautiful colours to the park and gardens, there are more subtle delights in two of our favourite plants – late-flowering clematis on tricky north walls. There’s starry Clematis jouiniana and the delicate yellow bells of Clematis rehderiana. Their delicate flowers make them easy to miss, but the bees always find them.

Along the long border, Tetrapanax rex makes a bold statement with its huge leaves – our very own T-Rex – and yellow rudbeckia, spidery pink and white cleome, delightful dahlias and cosmos take colour and interest through to the end of October.

Now known as the Woodland Garden, Mary Elizabeth’s 'Wilderness' flourishes beyond the long border. Her Victorian visitors – like our visitors today - would have been entranced by rare and unusual shade-loving plants and ferns in this tranquil haven. Autumn brings delicate pink anemone japonica flowers and then intense foliage colour to this part of the garden and later the delightful scent of mahonia drifts through the pathways.

Don't lose sight of the planting at the back of the parterre - vibrant blue ceratostigma willmottianum and ceratostigma plumbaginoides are real autumn highlights.

Clerondendrum bungeii always attracts attention - from visitors and from bees and butterflies - by the Turret door.

Apples and pears ripen on pleached fruit trees throughout autumn and look out for the exotic but hardy sugar-pink nerines flowering at the base of the wall as autumn fades to winter.

Autumn wildlife

Look carefully around the gardens in the autumn, there are many different examples of fungus in the grass and growing on the trees. Their forms change quickly as they mature making some of them hard to identify, and they're great for close-up photography.

Bring along your binoculars to spot the bird life in the trees and along the river.

Take a look to see if anyone's home in the bug hotel in the Spinney.

Two visitors exploring the formal garden at Charlecote Park, with short hedges and blooming flowers in the foreground and a decorative stone wall in the background — Visitors exploring the garden at Charlecote Park | © National Trust Images/Chris Lacey

Mary Elizabeth’s riverside Parterre

Mary Elizabeth Lucy’s passion for plants still influences the garden today. Her riverside Parterre was reinstated 30 years ago and is planted with thousands of bedding bulbs every year to ensure the parterre is bursting with colour.

The Woodland Garden

Once known as the Wilderness, the woodland garden contains rare and unusual shade-loving plants and ferns. The Victorian craze for ferns was called ‘pteridomania’, and you’ll discover lots of different species as you explore the Woodland Garden.

The 21st-century Whichford Pottery basin is based on the alabaster vase that Mary Elizabeth and George Hammond bought in Florence in 1841, which you’ll find in the Great Hall of the House.

Highlights in the Woodland Garden include the hellebores which begin to flower from January through to spring, when you’ll also find lots of flowering shrubs.

‘Went on a stroll around the green and wilderness, my dear birds were rejoicing... and were joined by the thrushes and blackbirds.’

– Mary Elizabeth Lucy's diary, 1887

Topiary in Green Court

The topiary in Green Court was designed in the 20th century by the late Sir Edmund Fairfax-Lucy, who created the formal design based on three-dimensional mathematical relationships between the house, the Gatehouse and this lawned forecourt.

Admire the wisteria climbing the side of the house is the summer, and look for late-flowering dahlias in the autumn. Spring is a wonderful time to see the apricot, apple and pear blossom at its best in Green Court, while the nerines provide a pop of colour in winter.

A view of the thatched summerhouse at Charlecote which has diamond shaped bay windows and new thatched roof, with plant pots dotted around it's base under the windows. — Granny's Summerhouse has recently been rethatched. | © Jana Eastwood

A Victorian summerhouse

A must-see feature in the garden is the thatched Summerhouse next to the Orangery. "Granny’s Summerhouse" is a Grade II listed property, built from brick and timber for Mary Elizabeth’s children and grandchildren.

It was created by the same company that made the dresser in the dining room, the apprentices of the Willcox Studio of Warwick, and was modelled on Plas Newydd in Llangollen, where Mary Elizabeth holidayed as a child.

Inside the summerhouse

While the Summerhouse isn’t open to visitors due to its fragile nature, you can peer through the windows and imagine playful days inside.

The Summerhouse is made up of two rooms, both clad with re-used timber and decorated with stained-glass windows. Two windows have dates on them – 1826 and 1828 – the years that two of Mary Elizabeth’s children were born.

An archway divides the two rooms, which contain a fireplace, chimney, a wooden coat of arms and a built-in mirrored glass cabinet to hold trinkets. The view from the large window looks over the house and garden – the perfect spot to sit and relax.