Stourhead Wiltshire

Overflowing with vistas, temples and follies, Stourhead is landscape gardening at its finest. The Palladian house has some fine Chippendale furniture and paintings by Claude and Gaspard Poussin, but it’s a sideshow to the magnificent 18th-century gardens (open 9am to 5pm), which spread out across the valley. Stourhead is off the B3092, 8 miles south of Frome. A picturesque 2-mile garden circuit takes you past the most ornate follies, around the lake and to the Temple of Apollo; a 3.5-mile side trip can be made from near the Pantheon to King Alfred's Tower, a 50m-high folly with wonderful views.