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Explore the garden at Goddards

Flowering laburnum over a tennis lawn
Find your perfect spot when you explore | © National Trust / Joanne Parker

Discover what you’ll see in the five acres of formal garden on your visit to Goddards. Once home to the Terry family, this private haven on the outskirts of York city centre features several garden rooms filled with scented borders, mature trees, ponds and wilder areas.

A garden of surprises 

From the second you walk under the gatehouse, and leave the busy suburbs of York behind, you feel like you've entered into a secret garden, hidden in plain sight. The garden is divided up into 'garden rooms' as was the Arts and Crafts garden style. What you see today, is the same design created by George Dillistone in the late 1920s.

 

The garden rooms

As you wander around the five-acre garden, uncover the unique atmosphere in each space. The ‘rooms’ performs a separate function, with hedges and shrubs providing the structure. Each room changes over the year as the planting and produce grow and return. Here's a little of what you might expect as you explore the garden

A house in the distance with roses and peonies in the foreground
Let the fragrant garden awaken your senses in summer | © National Trust / Joanne Parker

Fragrant garden

Breathe in the perfume of the blooms in the fragrant garden, especially from late spring and through summer. This is the newest garden room recreated at Goddards using the original 1928 design as inspiration. Dillistone used more annual plants, today the garden team have selected mainly flowering shrubs to give the same impact yet be more manageable both for time and climate. Take a seat close to roses, daphne, peonies, lilacs and rosemary.

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Glorious gardens. Utterly beautiful peaceful space with so many hidden spots and paths leading to new spaces to discover. It’s not huge but it is immaculate and a real hidden gem in the road out of York near the racecourse.

A quote by Tripadvisor review May 2022

Statuary returning home

New to see, but very much an original part of the garden is a series of statuary, including a pair of griffins, a pair of pelicans and a set of urns. They were originally acquired by Noel and Kathleen Terry and family and placed in their garden at Goddards; probably in the 1930s.

The statues were removed from the garden on the sale of the house to the National Trust in 1984 and relocated to the gardens of other family members. In time, kindly donated by the Terry family to their original home after nearly 40 years. After a programme of conservation, they are slowly getting returned to the garden. Thanks to archive imagery and this sketch from Betty Terry as a child, the team are able to place the pieces with relative confidence. 

Watercolour sketch of a garden with statues and trees
This childhood memory has helped with today's garden planning | © The Terry family

Look out for wildlife

Despite its relatively urban location, Goddards is a haven for wildlife. Set back from the busy streets, this pocket of green space has many different habitats to support nature throughout the year. With the neighbouring Knavesmire and to some extent York racecourse, there are plenty of places for wildlife to thrive. 

Why is the house closed?

Goddards was bought by the charity from the Terry family to use as the Yorkshire regional office. Although selected rooms in the house were open for a short time, since the pandemic the indoor spaces have remained closed, except for use as a National Trust office. The gardens are open on selected days for visitors to explore. 

View of a floral garden through a bricked arch

Discover more at Goddards garden

Find out when Goddards is open, how to get here, the things to see and do and more.

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