Holehird Gardens — Attraction in Windermere

Excellent 10 acre lakeland garden located near Windermere. A garden lovers paradise - a 'must visit' place if you like plants and gardens. Easy to find, just off Kirkstone Pass road from Windermere, next to Leonard Cheshire home. It is the home of the Lakeland Horticultural Society and is maintained by volunteers. Volunteers always happy to chat about plants and cultivation. Beautiful walled garden with superb new greenhouse. Alpine houses. Large selection of hostas, hellebores - many spring bulbs and wide range of shrubs, flowering throughout the year - extensive banked lawn, full of daffodils in Spring. National Collection of Astilbie - fantastic sight in full flower. Always something different to see through the seasons, rewards several visits throughout the year. Wonderful views of Langdale Pikes. Some parts of garden are difficult to access with steep slopes, but most is easily accessible with good path system. Plants often available for sale, propagated in the garden. Free to enter but donation welcomed. Carpark adjacent to garden - coaches could access, but access very difficult and must park away from garden at foot of steep drive and passengers must walk up to garden. One of our favourite gardens - we always visit if we're in the area - if you go once, you'll...

Beautiful gardens that are maintained purely by volunteers. My nephew is one such volunteer and has found it hugely rewarding. Holehird is a special place, peaceful and beautiful, and with an amazing variety of plants, albeit with some strong themes - hostas, hydrangeas, mints and mosses, alongside a stunning magnolia that boasted so many buds on our visit, we’re already planning on coming back during the flowering season as it promises to be magnificent.

Many of the paths are wheelchair accessible, often with a resin surface that is quite grippy, rather than the gravel paths one often finds, and which can be more problematic.

Views here are stunning, too, and rewarded our late December visit.

There are toilets available on site, including a disabled toilet, and free parking. While Holehird is not the largest such garden in the area, we happily spent an hour and a half visiting, which would have been longer in the summer with the garden in full...

Been to Lakes oodles of times, never knew this was here - what a shame, it was a wonderful discovery. No entry charge as such but donations are accepted. We went on a dreary Sept day but even so, the views we glimpsed and the gardens are so worth it. There is a more formal Walled garden, with beds etc and then much larger landscaped areas, built on a gentle hillside. The car park is on a level with the main Walled garden, so those with limited mobility may manage that and even on its own, its worth it. But if you can manage steps and sloping paths, each turn gives you something new to look at. We couldn’t manage to see their more specialist areas (up a very wet slippy grass bank) but still plenty for us to walk around. Lovely rocky stream running through one part, with fabulous planting. There are some toilets tucked away behind the main building -...