The Heavenly Gardens Of Godinton

We so enjoyed our visit to Doddington Gardens a few days ago (see previous blip 02/05/2025) that we decided to seek out another gardens that we'd never been to before - on this occasion Godinton House Gardens near Ashford.
In this instance they were in even more of a seemingly hidden location than Doddington Gardens and again it involved us navigating a lot of turning and twisting country lanes but this time we did really feel we would end up lost deep in the Kent countryside. Thankfully Google Maps on my brother's smartphone came to the rescue and we eventually found what we thought was the entrance to the grounds only to find out it was actually one of the exits. By this point we'd almost given up hope of finding our location so we decided to just sneak in the back way!
The architect Reginald Blomfield, a great exponent of 17th century formal gardens, designed the gardens in 1902. Where before open parkland had surrounded the house, Blomfield created a strict distinction between garden and the countryside bringing 'house and garden into harmony, to make the house grow out of its surroundings'.
Within this he created separate garden areas using terracing and topiary (just a fraction of which can bee seen in my first extra) in contrast to the wild garden (where my last two extras were taken with their attendant sculptures) and the traditional walled garden beyond. These separate gardens also include a Pan Garden  - which can be seen in my main image with a statue of Pan in the centre surrounded by box topiary overlooking the formal garden beyond with a view back towards the house - a Rose Garden with a modern combination of shrub roses and herbaceous plants and an Italian Garden lined with statues and draped with fabulous Japanese wisteria, stunning long borders, lilly ponds, croquet and tennis lawns, fern and alpine houses and an ornamental greenhouse.
Once we'd completed our perambulation around the grounds we still 'somehow' managed to locate the tearoom inside the house and indulged ourselves in a large pot of coffee and a slice of rhubarb crumble cake each feeling very privileged to have been allowed to experience such heavenly gardens.