The house comprises a converted farm building with a Victorian semi-detached front overlooking the castle grounds. An impressive horse chestnut tree is at the entrance to a winding drive through a walled garden planted with lawn, roses, daffodils, wildflower meadow grasses and various young trees and shrubs.
A yew hedge divides this side garden with a walled garden at the back of the house overlooking Bull Croft Park, planted with beech hedging, herbaceous borders, fruit trees and raised beds for vegetables.
Access: Wheelchair accessible
The house was built on Wallingford castle grounds to serve the 19th century Castle House until its demolition in the 1970s. The garden has some fine tall conifers (pines and Japanese cedar) but also overgrown areas which, as newish owners, we have begun tackling. In the front garden, we have just planted several fruit trees and installed raised beds in an area once shaded by a huge cypress.
We have begun a wildlife pond (deep water - caution!) surrounded by a walled gravel garden with a sunny vine-covered pergola. The back garden includes a walled stone terrace alongside Castle Lane with old roses, plus a tiny woodland area bordering Castle Meadows - we’re trying to love the rabbits which have a warren there and who (with the squirrels) limit what we can plant... There is a lovely view from our messy and mossy back lawn across to Castle Gardens.
Access: Wheelchair accessible for the most part. There are two shallow steps to the pond terrace and one step up to the rose terrace. Lawns are a little uneven and slope slightly. Children should be supervised near the pond
Listed Georgian house with Bath stone frontage and magnificent magnolia grandiflora. The garden is about 1.5 acres and has undergone changes during the current 5-year ownership to remove concrete paths and conifers. The new planting is settling in and consists of herbaceous borders, shrubs, small trees, a greenhouse, vegetable patch and wildflowers.
Access: via Bear Lane off Castle Street. Not suitable for wheelchairs as gravel drive and paths and narrow access in certain areas
One half of a late Victorian home built by two sisters. A small walled garden with a terrace at the back; roses throughout with a large apple tree that lends shade across the back of the garden. This is the first season after a small aesthetic make-over.
Access: Wheelchair accessible. Enter through side door from High Street, along narrow alleyway. Steps onto lawn and terrace
A hidden gem of a garden, created in 2006. It is a friendship garden, filled with herbaceous plants and shrubs mostly given as presents and cuttings by friends and relatives. In the centre of a small lawn (the guineapigs’ garden) there is a shaped flowering pear tree. A small patio with climbing roses is the home to four goldfish who have lived in a water feature there forever.
Access: Enter from the gravelled end of Thames Street car park via double pine gates on the right. Not suitable for wheelchairs as steps and narrow path
18th century listed Georgian house (formerly two cottages) with an impressive medieval stone entrance. Small walled garden with many roses (including climbers), patio, small trees and bedding plants.
Access: Wheelchair access to a level terrace, three steps up to lawn
Listed Georgian house built in the 1760s with later Bath Stone front and former stables (now garage). Traditional walled cottage garden with roses, hydrangeas, camellias, clematis, honeysuckle, jasmine, mock orange, lavender, rosemary, pinks, lupins, peony, ferns, lilac and two lemon trees.
An archway leads to a separate walled kitchen garden with herbs, peas, beans, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, squashes, climbing courgette, sweetcorn, fig tree, dahlias, rhubarb and blackcurrant.
Access: Wheelchair accessible but with a step up into garden and a small step into kitchen garden (NB narrow path)
Victorian house built in three stages between about 1850 and 1900. The garden is about a third of an acre with a hidden walled kitchen garden and a variety of ornamental & fruit trees. Planting is a little haphazard but it is very peaceful and a nice place to sit and have tea!
Access: Wheelchair accessible but there is a small lip into the garden and surfaces are very uneven in places
Victorian Gothic cottage with walled garden, once owned by William Blackstone the younger (1809-1881), who built Howbery Park. The garden was a building site while the cottage was renovated in 2021/22. This will be its fourth season as a remodelled cottage garden with climbing roses, clematis, foxgloves, delphiniums and lavender, and hollyhocks and perennial geraniums along the Thames Street verge.
Access: Enter via Thames Street, wheelchair accessible but one step up from road to side gate entrance (NB narrow path)
Grade II listed and built around 1840, Bridge House and the Coach House are riverside properties sharing an ancient brick and flint wall around the two-and-a-half-acre site. Several mature rare trees, notably an American Coast Redwood, a Japanese Ginkgo and the remains of an apple orchard.
Bridge House garden has four formal beds by the house, a wide expanse of lawn leading down to the river and some woodland planting under a mature pine. There is an outstanding view of Wallingford Bridge from the lawn.
The Coach House garden, formerly the kitchen garden to Bridge House, is lawn with large shrub/herbaceous borders and a small veg patch.
Access: Enter through the gates to Bridge House and then follow the arrows to the two gardens. Much of the gardens are level and suitable for wheelchairs. There is a steep grass bank down to the lawn at Bridge House and a further slope to the bank of the river which is unprotected – take care.
The house is Grade 2 listed and the oldest parts date from the 17th Century. The terraced gardens fall from the house to the River Thames, with numerous mature trees and shrubs. There is a pergola covered in climbing plants, and multiple borders filled with roses, peonies and a mix of perennials.
Access: Enter by side gate. Not suitable for wheelchairs, some uneven gravel paths, steps and grass
The garden was originally part of the garden of the adjoining Riverside House and is supported by a decorative Norman Shaw boathouse. Divided by a hornbeam hedge, there are herbaceous borders backed by vegetables, fruit trees, lawn and a shady walkway with views to the river.
Access: Enter by the side gate, some steps with handrail, wheelchair access to the garden
We have just started year three in our garden; they say it takes five years to make a show, so please forgive us if it looks like a work in progress, because it is. We do hope you will enjoy looking round; we will enjoy talking to you.
Access: Wheelchair accessible but there is a slope up to the main lawn
Enjoy a fragrant rose garden, a small circular lawn with an old mulberry tree, and a path leading under a rose arch to a wildlife pond with a seating area and a variety of heuchera. The path continues between perennial borders, past an old fuchsia tree, to shaded seating under a fragrant viburnum bodnantense
Access: Enter via garage door. Not suitable for wheelchairs as uneven steps and slopes
Walcots is an 18th Century house hidden away in the centre of town with three small walled gardens each with a pond. A large wisteria and climbers fill the walls. There are a number of unusual trees, shrubs and perennials together with numerous containers of hostas, pelagoniums and bulbs.
Access: entrance next door to the Five Little Pigs. Step up into garden, some steps around the garden. Children should be supervised near the ponds
End of listed early 18th century terrace. A corkscrew hazel dominates the end of the garden, with underplanting of hellebore and euphorbia. Various flowering shrubs, tree peony, amelanchier, mahonia, viburnum and a few roses. Perennial geranium, vinca minor, brunnera and heuchera provide ground cover. There is a small pebble pond. The hedgehog feeding station is visited every night from March to November.
Access: Step down into the garden via side gate in Squires Walk, the lane alongside the house
The Falcon was one of six old pubs in Church Lane, dating from 1725. The grade II listed cottage, pub, cellar and stable were converted ten years ago into one home. The garden is in two parts: a landscaped corner garden on the cut-through to Waitrose with a mature tamarisk tree, wisteria, cyclamen and African lilies. The walled courtyard has hydrangeas, jasmine, roses, irises and acer.
Access: via the back door through the railings next to the access to Waitrose car park, and thereby through a shed. Wheelchair accessible aided by the owner