We drive to and from Cornwall slowly each year, staying over for a night somewhere, visiting National Trust gardens en route — this year Coughton Court and Killerton as we drove down, Knightshayes and Hidcote on the way back to Cambridge. If the weather is bad we’ll take the tour of a historic house — but they are only shells of the homes they once were, while their grounds are bursting with life and colour in May.
The making of gardens is surely one of the art forms the English do best, and care about the most.