Mount Pleasant Garden & Sculpture trail is a real hidden gem of a beautiful garden to explore. One that will truly impress you with the amount of beautiful flowers and the unimaginable hard work that must have gone into it. What will surprise you about these gardens is that they are not looked after by a team of professional gardened but by a husband and wife who live on site and own the property and land.
Dave and Louise Darlington have spent the last 25 years developing their 10 ache site.
Top Info
📅 Open 1st April until 28th September
⏰ 11am - 4pm on Wed, Sat & Sun ( And Bank Holiday Mondays)
💰 Adult £7, Child £5
💰 Entry is free to RHS members
🌷Wildflower Meadow, Lower Lawn, Tropical and Japanese Gardens
🕷️So many interesting and unusual Sculptures
☕Cafe serving drinks, cakes and ice creams
🌼Plants for sale
👣 Paths are over grass and have an incline so not fully accessible.
🔨 Workshops on stone carving, needle felt & photography are regularly held.
🚗 Free Parking at Yeld Carpark. Yeld Ln, Tarporley CW6 0TB
Set in the glorious heart of the rolling Cheshire Countryside, near to Delamere Forest and only 15 minutes from the centre of Chester, Mount Pleasant Gardens offers the ideal opportunity to meander through some of the most gorgeous displays of plants with a rainbow of colour.
Ticket Costs
As it is simply their private garden it isn't open all the time. It's open 1st April to 28th Sept on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays. It's £7 for adults and £5 for children. However, it is an RHS partner garden so you can get in FREE with an RHS membership.
Where to Park
Parking at Yeld Carpark is Free. From the car park there is a short walk along a well signposted path to find the beginning of the gardens. A cute wooden cafe greets you with outdoor seating. Selling teas and coffees, ice creams and a selection of homemade cakes. Here, you can also purchase plants to take home. Carefully grown on site down at the greenhouses, which you can find while exploring the gardens.
The garden has different areas to discover, such as a meadow. We visited at the end of July and the meadow was a sea of yellow flowers, it was gorgeous. Hidden within the flowers are so many sculptures. There isn't just a couple. I lost count, but there must be over 60. Made out of all sorts of materials, some small and some giant. They are really interesting and truly add texture to the flowers and shrubs they are hidden within.
Our favourite sculpture has to be the massive horse drawn carriage right in the middle of the wild flower meadow. You can actually climb up and stand in the carriage. It is a stunning piece of artwork and looks great surrounded by all the wild flowers.
Another of our favourites is the giant spider which you walk right under and i loved the coloured glass sculptures hidden within the long grasses.
Other areas of the gardens include a Tropical and Japanese Garden. Filled with beautiful and usual trees, bridges, and water features. The paths meander around ponds and cross over paths many times, so it doesn't really matter which way you go as you'll always end up back where you've been before. There are plenty of benches to sit and take in your surroundings. I particularly liked sitting by the Lower Pond where we sat and discussed the lily pads we could see and what animals we could hear.
Workshop & Greenhouses
At the far end of the garden is a Sculpture Workshop where they run workshops for stone carving, photography and needle felting. Details can be found on their website. You will also find the greenhouses where they lovingly grow their plants which they either sell at the cafe or to use in their own beautiful garden.
The Cafe
We ended our visit by calling into the cafe back at the top of the garden to get an ice cream. These are really reasonably priced. £1 for a lolly and £2 for a cone. There are some nice looking sponge cakes and drinks available too. The cafe only has outside seating but some of it is covered. In the cafe they sell a few small items like greeting cards and also have lots of plants for sale which they use in the garden.
Our Final Verdict
It is a lovely place to visit and the sculptures really add interest to walking around compared to a normal garden. It isn't a massive area to cover so you could easily walk around it all in an hour and then enjoy a sit down at the cafe. If you are a RHS member then it is definitely worth visiting as it is Free, but even if you are paying in, it really is a beautiful garden to explore. Children are encourage to not run around the gardens so please do keep a close eye on them, there is also open water near the pond. I've been to visit twice and was still finding new things i hadn't seen the first time.
Visit July 2024
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