Where to seeSnowdrops without a cararound the UK
Delicate white flowers herald the end of winter and the start of spring, forming beautiful carpets in woods and gardens. No wonder they have so many fans - or galanthophiles, as snowdrop-lovers are officially known. “Many, many welcomes, February fair-maid,” wrote Tennyson in his poem The Snowdrop. They actually start blooming from January onwards and often last into March. Here are ten different places across the UK where seeing snowdrops doesn’t need to involve a car.
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Myddelton House, Enfield, Greater London
The little valley at the far end of the alpine meadow in the gardens of Myddelton House fills with snowdrops from January onwards. Enfield’s old market cross stands near the carp pond and there are greenhouses with four climactic zones, where you can find exotic blooms even in the depths of winter. The huge grounds of nearby Forty Hall are similarly beautiful in any season. Both are free, but you need to pay for parking so car-free is the best way to go.
- Getting there: The garden is half a mile from Turkey Street station. Turn right under the railway bridge and keep straight along Turkey Street, under the main road, across the New River and over another road to see Myddelton House ahead of you.
- Food and drink: Myddelton House has its own little tea room and there’s also a great café at Forty Hall, just down Bull’s Cross road.
- Further adventures: Discover more of the area’s hidden gems in our Good Journey guide to car free adventures around Enfield. Follow Good Journey’s directions around the River Lee Country Park.
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Cambridge Botanic Garden
Thirty nine different types of snowdrops line the paths of Cambridge University Botanic Garden and complement the huge evergreen trees that tower over the walkways. You can pick up a Snowdrops Trail at the gate to make sure you don’t miss them. The Winter Garden is full of varied shapes and colours; fragrant wintersweet and viburnum make the air smell like spring. You can follow the winter garden path as it winds past snowdrops and yellow aconites under scarlet stems of dogwood or arches of white brambles. There are greenhouses too so you can warm up with a sudden blast of pungent tropical greenery.
- Getting there: Cambridge Botanic Garden is just five minutes’ walk from Cambridge Railway station, with direct trains from London and Norwich. Come out of the station and walk straight ahead. It’s at the end of the road and is open every day.
- Food and drink: The Garden Kitchen near the greenhouses serves quiches, sandwiches and homemade soup.
- Further adventures: There’s lots more to do in and around Cambridge. There are a few ideas here and more around Saffron Walden and Ely.
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Mottisfont Abbey, Hampshire
The jasmine-scented Winter Garden at Mottisfont flames with scarlet dogwood stems and bright pink cyclamen; the low sun shines through the loose papery bark of Chinese red birches and makes it gleam like amber. A February stream of blue Glory of the Snow under the lime trees echoes the trout-filled River Test flowing nearby. Swans glide past winding paths through glades of naturalised snowdrops.
- Getting there: It’s open daily and is a well-signed mile or so on foot across fields and along lanes from Mottisfont and Dunbridge railway station. The walk takes you past nesting rooks, an orchard and a 12th-century church.
- Head gardener Jonny Norton describes the waves of early spring flowers at Mottisfont, including: “masses and masses of different narcissi, which start blooming from March, building to a big crescendo of tulips and things; it becomes a carpet of spring”
- Living at Mottisfont from 1934, Maud Russell was the guiding light behind the gardens and the art collections inside. Her eclectic circle of friends included Ian Fleming, Rex Whistler and Russian emigree artist, Boris Anrep.
- Anrep, whose work includes the mosaic floors of the National Gallery, created the mosaic angel with Maud’s face near the entrance to the house under a tangle of wisteria.
- Deep in the Hampshire countryside, Mottisfont and Dunbridge station is just twenty minutes by train from Salisbury or Southampton.
- Food and drink: Old Kitchen café.
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Harlow Carr, Harrogate, North Yorkshire
Harlow Carr‘s Winter Walk makes the most of the season’s varied shapes and colours, with winter-flowering shrubs to leads the way before the spring bulbs come to life in February and March. Nearly seventy acres of gardens, among woods and water, are easy to get to by train or bus. Enjoy the purple thickets of dwarf irises, which flower from late January to early March at Harlow Carr, and a subtle scent of vanilla from the flowering sweet box.
- Open daily. Free for RHS members.
- Getting there: Follow Good Journey’s directions. Walking from Harrogate railway station, you can stroll through Valley Gardens, a great winter park in its own right
- Food and drink: There’s a Bettys tearoom in the town and by the gardens themselves plus lots of other choices nearby.
- Further adventures: There are a few more suggestions nearby in Good Journey’s guide to Leeds.
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Burton Agnes Hall, East Yorkshire
Spectacular carpets of snowdrops are a feature of the woods at lovely Burton Agnes Hall. The woodland walk winds past thousands of the little white flowers and you can warm up afterwards in the Carriage House cafe.
- Open: Woodland, gardens, shops and cafe will be open to visitors daily 11am to 4pm for most of February. Check the website for more details.
- Getting there: Regular bus 121 from nearby Driffield and Bridlington stops close to Burton Agnes. Follow Good Journey’s directions.
- Food and drink: the licensed, eco-friendly courtyard café serves takeaway hot meals made from local ingredients and seriously good coffee. Some of the fruit and veg are grown in the grounds of Burton Agnes Hall itself.
- Further adventures: in our car-free guide to Scarborough and Whitby and our feature writer’s car-free trip to Bridlington in the Guardian, which includes a visit to Burton Agnes.
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Cambo Gardens, Fife
A walled garden full of spring flowers, a vegan cafe, a local distillery… there’s plenty to do around the Cambo estate and galanthophiles won’t be disappointed by the 350 varieties of snowdrop in the national collection here. A winding stream-side walk down to the sea makes a perfect setting.
- Gardens and café are open: daily from 10am to 4pm.
- Getting there: Bus 95 goes hourly to the gate of the Cambo Estate from St Andrews bus station.
- Food and drink: the tea room serves special snowdrop biscuits with tea or coffee. There’s even a whisky distillery nearby.
- Further adventures: Good Journey’s feature on Coastal Fife explores more of the area and Good Journey’s feature writer also wrote this guide for the Guardian, which includes a visit to Cambo.
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Painswick Rococo Garden, Gloucestershire
A hidden gem in the Cotswolds, Painswick Rococo Garden is just five miles from Stroud with is farmers’ markets and great cafes. It’s the UK’s only surviving Rococo garden, full of ornamental details characteristic of this eighteenth century style. It had become a wilderness, but was restored by Lord and Lady Dickinson, the then-owners of Painswick House. Five million snowdrops bloom here in spring, usually from the end of January.
- Open daily until late February for snowdrop season. Book ahead!
- How to get to Painswick Rococo Garden car-free: Bus 66 runs hourly from Stroud to Cheltenham and stops about half a mile away from the garden. Visitors can stroll along Pullens Road (see map below). It runs on Sunday too, but a bit less frequently.
- Food and drink: a café in the old coach house near the entrance to the garden is open to all (whether or not you’re visiting the garden) and serves home-cooked food for lunch and tea, sometimes using produce from the garden.
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Benington Lordship Gardens, Hertfordshire
Naturalised snowdrops drift down the banks of a steep-sided moat around a ruined Norman tower at Benington Lordship Gardens. Hellebores, yellow aconites, orange-stemmed willow and early daffs add to the February display. Single and double snowdrops grow beside a path above the moat; and hundreds of unusual varieties grow in the borders and kitchen garden, including the large-flowered ‘Mighty Atom’.
- Opening times for 2023: Check Benington Lordship website.
- Getting there: From the railway station at Ware in Hertfordshire, turn left down station road to Amwell End and get bus 384; it runs every few hours Monday to Saturday (plan ahead!)
- Food and drink: hot soup and cream teas are available in the lovely old tea room.
- Further adventures: For more things to see near Hertford and Ware, see our Good Journey feature.
