Look out for the Good Journey Mark – where car-free visitors are welcome and enjoy a discount
Where to see Daffodilsby bus and train around the UK
Shakespeare’s lost princess Perdita in The Winter’s Tale longs for: “…daffodils,/That come before the swallow dares, and take/The winds of March with beauty.” From March (and sometimes even earlier these days), their yellow trumpets light up the parks and springtime woodland. Here are half a dozen places – from stately homes to villages - where getting to see some dancing daffs doesn’t need to involve a car. These are mostly garden daffodils, rather than the Wordsworthian wild variety, but they’ll raise a smile on a grey, wintry day or on a blazing blue one…
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1. Hampton Court, London
200,000 flowering bulbs brighten the gardens around Hampton Court. You don’t even need to pay to see them – the Water Gardens in Bushy Park are free to wander through. But arrive by train and you can get two tickets for the price of one to visit Henry VIII’s incredible Tudor palace.
- There are trains to Hampton Court every half an hour from London Waterloo; you can get on at Vauxhall, Wimbledon and other stations and a travelcard or Oyster is valid as Hampton Court’s still in Zone 6.
- The station is just five minutes walk from the palace. Come out onto the main road and turn right over the Thames, enjoying the fabulous views from the bridge.
- You could stride out on a six mile circuit. Simply cross the bridge and turn right along the river, following the Thames Path and then the London Loop, through Bushy Park from Hampton Wick, past ponds and deer parks.
- Or, for a shorter stroll through flowering woods, head straight towards the Diana Fountain and left across Bushy Park into a springtime paradise.
- Turn left through the blossoming gardens, with the water on your right, or cross the bridge to find the café.
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2. Thriplow, Cambridgeshire
Every year the Cambridgeshire village of Thriplow has a daffodil weekend and Country Fair (this year – their 50th festival! – it’s on Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th March 2018)
- Monday to Saturday, you can visit the village via bus 31 from Shelford station, on the Cambridge – Liverpool Street railway line.
- Stroll down Shelford’s Station Road and turn right on Tunwells Lane to find the bus stop. Buses leave every 1½ hours from 10.30am, with the last one back soon after 2pm.
- Check out the Green Man, Thriplow’s friendly, community-run pub, which is a great place for lunch . It’ll be jam-packed during the festival, but you can enjoy morris dancing outside and plenty of food outlets dotted around the village.
- The 31 goes on (until early evening) to Fowlmere, where there is a fabulous RSPB reserve. From there, you could walk two miles across country to the stations at Foxton or Shepreth.
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3. Castle Howard, Yorkshire
The gardens at Castle Howard become a carpet of yellow in time for the house’s Easter reopening. Arrive by bus and you’ll get a discount.
- Spring is a particularly magical time to visit these huge, landscaped grounds. Besides the flowers that brighten every corner of the gardens, there are buzzards wheeling over Ray Wood and great crested grebes doing water dances on the lake. There is a reduced-rate ticket in winter for the gardens only.
- The trusty 181 bus service every couple of hours from York to Castle Howard has recently got a new temporary operator, but still seems to be running reliably to the castle gates.
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4. Caerphilly Castle, South Wales
Within easy walking distance of Caerphilly station, this huge castle was used as a major location for the hit BBC show Merlin. It’s a great place to see the national flower of Wales reflected in watery moats and lakes.
- If the half-mile stroll from the station is too far, the 26 bus stops right outside on its way from Caerphilly to Cardiff. Bus 50 from Newport also stops at the gate 15 minutes after leaving Newport railway station.
- Gilbert ‘the Red’ de Clare, who built the original Castell Coch, built this massive fortification using a series of defensive walls.
- Not only are there banks of daffodils framing the fortress, there are also ornamental cherry trees blooming nearby.
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5. Batsford Arboretum, Gloucestershire
To enjoy hosts of golden daffodils while strolling in the woods, walk from Moreton-in-Marsh station to Batsford Aboretum, about 1½ miles away, along the Monarch’s Way. March is the best month for daffs and early magnolias
- Regular First Great Western trains from London Paddington head towards Worcester and Hereford via Oxford.
- An hour and three quarters through scenic countryside brings you to the gold-stoned Cotswold town of Moreton-in-Marsh.
- Stroll into the centre of town and head past the historic town hall into Corder’s Lane, following brown signs straight to the arboretum.
- Together with pale primroses, blue scilla and pink flowering cherries, the daffodils make a great spring show.
- Half a mile south of the arboretum is the chocolate box village of Bourton on the Water, with several tourist attractions including a historic model village.
- From Bourton on the Water, the 801 bus runs regularly back to Moreton-in-Marsh or on to Cheltenham.
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6. Greenbank Garden, Glasgow
Famous for its daffodil collection, nearly 600 different varieties of daffodils burst into life every spring at the National Trust’s Greenbank Garden in Glasgow. This 18th century merchant’s house has an unusual walled garden surrounded by woods and you can buy two tickets for the price of one if you present this voucher with a valid train ticket.
- Scotrail list Clarkston as the nearest station, but the garden is also half an hour’s walk from Whitecraigs; from Whitecraigs station, turn left off the main road down The Loaning and look out for a path on your left, just before house number 15.
- This will lead across Cathcart Castle Golf Course. From near the clubhouse, turn right into Mearns Road and left into Flenders Road to reach the garden.
- The gardens – and the tea shop! – are open from March 1st.
