Kenilworth Castle & Elizabethan Garden

The Elizabethan Garden at Kenilworth is a rare chance to walk into a garden as it was imagined in 1575. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, made it to impress Queen Elizabeth I on her visit that year, and today's garden is designed to match the historical record of its original appearance as closely as possible. It sits in the right-hand court of the castle, managed by English Heritage, with the ruined keep and Leicester's building towering behind.

Start on the steep terrace along the south side of the garden, which gives the view the Elizabethans intended, looking down on eight square knot gardens. In gardens of this period the plants were almost incidental: the design leans on sculpture and ornament, including four wooden obelisks painted to look like porphyry and a marble fountain with a statue of two figures from Greek myth. A timber aviary holds a range of birds, and the beds are planted for scent, colour and fruit. The influence of the Italian Renaissance garden at the Villa d'Este shows in the symmetry and the formal layout.

For gardeners, the knot beds are the main lesson: they show how low, clipped patterns and a strong central feature can carry a formal garden with very few plant varieties. After the garden, climb the viewing platforms in Leicester's building, installed in 2014, for views from the Queen's former rooms over the castle and countryside. The great hall, the Norman keep and the stables are all part of the same ticket, so give yourself most of a day.