Okay, I have this coffee table book on gardens ("Visions of Paradise" by Schinz and Littlefield) and in it is the most glorious perennial border. Everything about it screams perfection. It is at Bampton Manor, Oxfordshire. But the web brings up nothing on this place, let alone anything on visiting. Does anyone know about it? Cotswold Scouser, are you there?

Also, do you think visiting a place because of a picture is silly? Have I already "seen" what there is to see and would I be dissapointed when I got there in person? Does anyone have a philosophy on such things?

I'm pretty sure that is the large house in Bampton (near Clanfield and south of Brize Norton).

Years ago I used to drive through the village on my way to a restaurant in Clanfield and vaguely remember a large manor house. If a web search doesn't bring up any info (I haven't tried) it is probably a private home. But very often these types of properties open their gardens periodically for the National Gardens Scheme.

BTW - very near there is Kelmscott Manor which is William Morris's home/garden and well worth a visit.

Hopefully CotswoldScouser will see your therad and know more (or even if I am thinking of the right place)

My search of the web came up with the following:

Six miles from Witney, Bampton lies on a gravel terrace, just above the flat Thames valley. It is an attractive Cotswold village, off the usual tourist tracks...
Weald Manor opposite Ham Court, and Bampton Manor to the north, add to the architectural delights; both are set in charming gardens which are open to the public two or three times a year.
http://www.spaceagency.co.uk/village...ail.php?id=639

Other sites suggest Bampton Manor is the home of Richard Michael John Hely-Hutchinson, 8th Earl of Donoughmore.

Perhaps when morning comes in England, Cotswold Scouser will have more information.

As to your second question, without being philosophical, I imagine books and pictures drive a lot of travel decisions. They certainly have for me.

Thanks janisj. I will look into Kelmscott as well.

I have to chuckle every time I see the word "scheme" used this way. The American connotation is quite negative. In the U.S. scheme connotes a devious plan, or one that is too complex to be practical.

About that "scheme" thing

Yep - I lived in the UK long enough that scheme sounds OK to me. But when I give my travel talks I have to be careful not to use "British-isms" like scheme, car park, trolley etc -- or I end up having to translate what I meant . . . .

Thanks ron and janisj. I googled "national garden scheme bampton manor" and it turns up that, in fact, the garden is open this year on August 28th. (Assuming "Bampton" refers to this particular garden.) So, visiting is no easy thing, unfortunately, unless I take time off of work and plan a trip around this one date. Maybe once I'm retired...

The Manor House, Bampton is a private house. As far as I'm aware, the Donoughmores actually live there fullish time, and it's open for visiting only on the NGS day and for the odd fund-raiser these people usually throw a couple of times a year. If you want to write to them to see if there's some other time you can get in, their address is The Manor House, Broad St, Bampton OX18 2LQ.

I've not knowingly visited the place (most local fund raisers tend to be at night, and to be honest one warm white wine fest in a largeish house rapidly blurs into all the others). Bampton's a nice town, with the usual stuff and a reasonably well-stocked website (www.bamptonoxon.co.uk/historic_sites.htm for the buildings).

It's a town for living in (in fact, if it wasn't so far from the railway, it'd be THE most perfect town for living in on the planet, with its own Saint and a green you'd kill for), but really not for being a tourist in. The most accessible gardens are those of the Deanery, which open a few days a year for the Bampton Festival Opera (www.bamptonopera.org): an annual showing of operas you've never heard of written by Mozart's competitors.

Those competitors had truly dire libretto writers - which is why you've never heard of them - but could knock out even more hummable songs than Wolfie - which is why this festival is worth crossing oceans for.

It usually more or less coincides with the Fairford Air Festival, though the planes stop as the overture strikes up. Just as well, since just about the only thing that can drown my and Mrs CS' guests during the pre-opera boozing are a couple of dozen F111s. Fairford Church, BTW, is without a shadow of doubt the most beautiful single thing in Britain.

There's of all things a winery near by which makes (undrinkable) red, though the white's fine. Black Bourton church, at the very edge of the Brize Norton runway, has excellent medieval paintings. And the church close at the local metropolis, Witney, absolutely epitomises the small-town English idyll.

PS

I haven't got a hard copy of the Yellow Book, which sometimes does list NGS openings that aren't on websites. But I can't find any reference to a publicised Bampton Manor opening under the NGS (or any other) scheme at all. Or any NGS openings in Oxfordshire on Aug 28 this year.

Thanks C.S. Here's the link to the August 28th date.
http://www.elworthy-cottage.co.uk/oz...g%20Times.html
Unless of course I'm reading it incorrectly, which is quite possible.

Witney sounds like a dream.

"One warm white wine fest in a largeish house rapidly blurs into all the others."

You are a hoot, Cotswold Scouser