Boasting wonderful gardens throughout the year including the most spectacular bluebell display from mid April, Hole Park Gardens in Rolvenden, will open earlier than usual for the 2013 season allowing visitors to enjoy the early spring colour in the gardens and woodlands.
The gardens will be open daily between 11am and 6pm from Palm Sunday, 23 March to 31 May and then on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5 June to 31 October. The gardens will also open for autumn Sundays on 6, 13 and 27 October 2013.
A family owned estate, Hole Park has been owned by the Barham family for the past four generations. The gardens manage to combine formalised gardens with natural woodland. They cover some 15 acres and were developed, laid out and planted by Colonel Barham, the great-grandfather of the present owner, in the years between the two World Wars.
After the beauty of the daffodils, camellias, magnolias and early flowering spring bulbs, nature puts on a truly magical show when the woodlands at Hole Park are carpeted in a sea of bluebells surrounded by mature rhododendrons and azaleas. Shortly after, the impressive standard wisterias put on a magnificent show in the Vineyard garden.
In addition to the many visitors to Hole Park Gardens who come to see the bluebells in the spring, the gardens have also gained a reputation as a garden to visit in the summer months when the herbaceous borders are full of colour and attract an impressive number of butterflies. The colourful exotic border and unique late flowering agapanthus named ‘Hole Park Blue’ prolongs the flowering season until the beautiful autumn colours of the maples and mature native trees.
The Ice House, which is lit by solar power, can be discovered throughout the season on the woodland walk.
Light lunches and homemade cakes are available in the coach house where homemade jam and honey produced from the fruit and bees on the Hole Park Estate can be purchased.
Visitors can also buy estate grown apple juice and local beer from the estate’s own micro-brewery The Old Dairy Brewery. There is also a plant stall next to the tea rooms.
For more information please visit www.holepark.com or telephone 01580 241344.
Group visits and conducted garden tours should be arranged in advance.
Admission remains unchanged for 2013 at £6.00 for adults and £1 for children.
Hole Park is situated 4 miles west of Tenterden on the B2086 between Rolvenden and Cranbrook in Kent. Postcode TN17 4JB
