The best autumnal gardens near London

Autumn is spectacular at West Dean Gardens. Wander around walled fruit orchards, an Edwardian pergola and arboretum, or duck into one of the Victorian glasshouses. Foodies should hit up the café for hearty dishes made from home-grown veg.  Menus change according to the seasons, but expect artisan charcuterie and Sussex cheese sharing boards all year round. Pre-book tickets before you visit. 

Get there: one hour 30 minutes by train from London Victoria to Chichester, then 20 minutes by bus.

Need another reason to take a day trip into Oxford’s beautiful city centre? We’ve got a doozy – this exquisite botanic garden, which happens to be the oldest in the country and home to more than 6,000 types of plant. Negroni fans should sniff out the ‘gin border’, a bed full of the botanicals used to flavour mother’s ruin. There’s also usually a packed events calendar, from alfresco yoga to (grinches, avert your eyes now) Christmas wreath workshops with a botanical twist. Check out the garden’s bloomin’ marvellous autumn borders, which peak in September and October. Pre-book your tickets before you visit. 

Get there: one hour by train from Paddington to Oxford, then 15 minutes by bus. 

Go in autumn, and you’ll catch Audley End House at its most beautiful, as the garden’s many trees turn tawny shades of red.  Spot the howard oak – one of two in the world – and mosey through the kitchen garden. This two-and-a-half acre allotment is farmed organically, and beds are bursting with pumpkins, and sprouting broccoli, while fruit trees include 120 varieties of apples, and around 50 pear and plum varieties. When you’re there, don’t forget to visit to the stable yard, where you can meet the resident horses. Pre-book tickets before you visit. 

Get there: 53 minutes by train from Liverpool St to Audley End, then ten minutes by bus; two hours from London by car.

At Marks Hall Garden and Arboretum you’ll find everything you could possibly want from a bracing autumnal walk: misty meadows, dense woodland and sparkling ornamental lakes – bordered with blood-red dogwood, which are especially striking this season. Those in proud possession of a log burner can even stock up on firewood before leaving.

Get there: one hour 30 minutes from London
by car. 

Green-fingered guru Monty Don raves about this garden, and we can totally see why. The grounds of the seventeenth-century Rousham House are full of fruit trees laden with ripe apples, pears and figs. Elsewhere in the William Kent-designed garden you’ll find kaleidoscopic borders, a riverside trail and an impressive vegetable patch. Rousham is also relatively uncommercialised, with no gift shop or café; bad news for anyone too extra to pack their own picnic, good news for anyone looking for unspoilt nature.

Get there: one hour by train from London Marylebone to Oxford Parkway, then 25 minutes by bus; one hour 50 minutes from London by car.