Goldstone Hall Gardens

Goldstone Hall is a hotel garden with a real gardener's focus. It covers around five acres around a Georgian brick house in the Shropshire countryside, and it is best known for a productive walled garden where flowers, fruit and vegetables are grown side by side. Because it is part of a working hotel, it has a relaxed, unhurried feel, and it is a pleasant stop if you are already in the area.

The walled garden is the part to see. Herbaceous borders give colour through the summer, while fruit and vegetable beds show how a kitchen garden can look good as well as feed a household. Walls give shelter and warmth, so look at what has been trained against them and how the beds are arranged for easy picking. Elsewhere, lawns and planting around the house frame the old building, and the well in the garden is said to be the deepest in Shropshire.

Gardeners with a vegetable plot will get the most from a visit, especially if you want ideas for mixing ornamental planting with crops. The garden is an RHS partner garden and has opened for charity, which says something about the standard of care. As it is attached to a hotel, check arrangements before you go and allow time for a drink or a meal if you want to make an afternoon of it.