Barnsdale Gardens — Attraction in Exton and Horn

This is such a delightful place to visit. It's beautiful, peaceful & full of wildlife. For those of us who remember Geoff, you can really sense his presence, even now. You also gain a huge impression of his abilities, and of just how hard he worked. For newer/younger gardeners, there are so many sources of inspiration, easily adapted to whatever size plot you have.

If you forget your notebook, they very sensibly sell them in the shop, together with DVDs of Geoff's programmes & lots of other goodies. If you never saw Geoff on TV, I thoroughly recommend the DVDs. He gives very clear instructions & is very easy to follow.

The Tea Room is currently serving to outdoor customers only (should change on 17th May). There are plenty of well-spaced tables in the lovely Tea Garden. A good range of light meals & excellent homemade cakes are available.

Make sure you visit the nursery: there are lots of unusual and very well grown plants, and you will find many of the ones you see in the gardens.

If you live near enough to be able to visit a few times a year, it's worth considering becoming a member. We can't wait...

Don’t waste your money. We visited on 21 August 2025 and were hugely disappointed. Had been previously a number of years ago and it has definitely gone down hill.

It boasts 38 ‘gardens’. What it means are 38 different areas have been planted. To be fair, some are gardens but many are just one bed.

A few, Lands End Garden, Apple Arch and the Allotment were lovely and an effort had obviously been made.

Didn’t see many roses in the Rose Garden, but there were more elsewhere, including the wonderful Gertrude Jeckle rose.

The First Time garden was a good example Of the types of flowers that someone who was setting up a garden could be encouraged to use as they are easy to grow and will spread: hostas, Japanese anemones, helianthus, lavender etc.

Unfortunately, the same plants that had been used in the First Time garden were used again and again in probably 30+ of the remaining gardens.

We found nothing innovative, inspiring or delightful on the majority of the site and speaking with other people who were there (but not from our tour) they were equally underwhelmed and swore they would...

The gardens are sadly a poor reflection of what Geoff Hamilton left. I know its been a starnge year but so many areas in such a poor state and every area that had water was in a terrible state. Still many idethey knew it didnt as were had. Used the tea rooms. Food was very nice sadly that is the best of it servce was very slow, it seems that food ordered is served in the order it is ordered... I thought all eating places worked this way so could not understand why the wait was Soooooo long. Ordered the soup and roll with the deal of a sandwich included... when arrived the soup had no roll, on asking for my roll was informed that if you have the soup/sandwich deal then you dont get a roll with the soup.... WHAT. Ecplained that the menu doe not state that only to be told that they knew that it didnt but it was their policy. my response was I want the roll as you are breaking the law..... I got my roll but had to compain again as made to wait for it, reason was the roll was an order and had to wait its turn in the prepared orders..... Fred Carnos army coud not have...