Roses at Hever Castle

If like me, you enjoy visiting gorgeously romantic, Italian inspired gardens, filled with statues and roses, then you need to get yourselves tickets to Hever Castle.

It is currently 'Hever in Bloom' which is their annual rose festival and it really does not disappoint.

I was lucky enough to choose a time when the gardens were relatively quiet. Usually the place is heaving but on this particular visit, the gods were on my side and I managed to take some lovely photo's with no-one else in them!

I have visited their rose week before which you can read here.

Hever Castle is part of the Historic Houses membership which is great as usually it's quite expensive, tickets for the castle and gardens cost around £21 which I think is a lot, despite how impressive it is.

Now that I have visited a few places under the Historic Houses scheme, I feel I have already made my money's worth in membership costs.

For this visit, I was mainly here for the roses but there is so much to see. There is a lake walk, the maze, you can go inside the castle which is the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. They have a playground for children, a 38 acre lake, numerous grotto's and statues to marvel at, a tearoom and giftshop.

The Italian gardens and rose gardens are my favourite, the amount of work that the gardeners put in here is impressive. The Italian gardens have sweeping, manicured lawns with numerous statues on display and at the end you are welcomed by the loggia and fountain which is very similar to the Trevi fountain in Rome.

Within the rose garden, you are greeted with the scent of over 4000 roses. They flourish in June and they had all sorts of colours, reds, pinks, purple, white, orange and yellow. I felt like I had walked into the Queen's grounds from Alice in Wonderland.

It really was the most dreamy place to spend an hour or two. I feel so lucky to live nearby to places like this that contain so much history and beauty.

Tickets need to be booked in advance, there are clear social distancing measures in place and with it all being outdoors there was no need to wear a mask, unless you are in the gift shop, cafe or castle.

I am already excited to revisit when the wild flower meadows are in bloom!