Hughenden Manor is a beautifully preserved Victorian estate near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, best known as the beloved country home of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and now cared for by the National Trust as a rich historical landmark.
United Kingdom: Buckinghamshire – Cliveden
Scandal, Royalty and a Cracking Garden: A Day Out at Cliveden House, Buckinghamshire
We pulled into the car park at Cliveden on one of those classic English summer afternoons where the sky can’t quite make up its mind. Partly cloudy, a bit breezy, warm enough — you know the sort. It had been a long, hot summer, the kind that sounds appealing in February but by August has turned every lawn in England the colour of a digestive biscuit. Karen had been keen to visit for a while, and honestly, once you know a bit about the history of this place, it’s hard not to be. There have been three houses on this site, two of them burned down, and the one standing today has seen more drama than most television soap operas. We gave the interior a miss — it operates as a luxury hotel now and you need to book a guided tour in advance — and instead spent our time wandering the grounds. That turned out to be more than enough.
🏛️ The House and the Terrace — A Bit of Background
Before we get into the gardens, it’s worth knowing what you’re looking at when you stand in front of the house. The whole thing begins back in 1666, when George Villiers, the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, bought the estate. He’d been knocking about in exile with Charles II and apparently the views over the Thames reminded him of the Mediterranean. He had the hilltop levelled — no small undertaking in 1670 — to create a terrace for his new house, which was designed by architect William Winde. It wasn’t meant to be some grand statement stately home. More of a bolt hole, really. Somewhere to have a party and bring his mistress, which was somewhat appropriate given the scandals that would follow centuries later.
That first house burned down in 1795. The second one, built in 1824, also burned down, in 1849. You’d think someone would have had a word with the insurance company by then. The third and current house was commissioned two years later and designed by Sir Charles Barry — the same man responsible for the Houses of Parliament — for the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland. It’s an imposing Italianate building in pale stone, and it sits on that original terrace looking out over the parterre towards the Thames as if it’s been there since the dawn of time.
Standing in front of it on a breezy afternoon, it’s quite something. The National Trust manages the gardens; the hotel company manages the house. Between them they seem to be keeping things in reasonable order.
🌿 The Gardens — Acres of History Underfoot
The Parterre
The first thing you encounter on the south side of the house is the Parterre, and it is enormous. It’s one of the largest formal parterres in the whole of Europe, which isn’t something you hear every day in Buckinghamshire. The original terracing was created by the Duke of Buckingham in the 1670s, but the elaborate planted design you see today was the work of John Fleming, head gardener under the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland in the 1850s. Fleming was something of a pioneer in what’s known as ribbon and carpet bedding — essentially, using masses of seasonal bedding plants arranged in patterns — and his work at Cliveden was famous enough to influence gardeners the world over.
The sixteen main beds were full of colour on the day we visited, all carefully arranged in drifts of salvias and gazanias with silvery senecio edging. The bedding plants were holding up admirably — which is more than could be said for the grass paths between them, which had taken a battering from the summer heat and were looking decidedly sorry for themselves. It’s formal gardening taken seriously. Barry, the architect who designed the current house, intended the parterre to feel like an extra room of the house — a sort of outdoor drawing room — and walking along it, you can see exactly what he meant. At the far end there’s a classical sculpted fountain, and beyond that, views stretching down to the river.
The terrace wall itself is worth a look. Significant alterations to it were made as part of Barry’s 1851 work, giving it that sweeping, theatrical quality. From up on the terrace, the view across the parterre and down the Thames valley is the sort of thing that makes you stop and go quiet for a moment, which is saying something when you’re with Karen.
The Amphitheatre
To the north-west of the house, tucked into the woodland on the cliff edge above the Thames, is the amphitheatre. It’s a rustic turf affair, carved into the hillside — though the turf was having a rough time of it after the summer we’d had, more straw than grass if we’re being honest — and it was created by the landscape designer Charles Bridgeman for the 1st Earl of Orkney, who owned Cliveden from 1696 to 1737. Orkney was a celebrated military man — he’d played a significant role at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704 — but he was also, by all accounts, a quietly cultured fellow who liked to do things properly.
After Orkney died in 1737, the estate was leased to Frederick, Prince of Wales — son of George II and father of George III — who used Cliveden as an informal royal court and a place to escape from his rather difficult relationship with his father. Frederick had a thing for music and the arts, and it was here in this modest grassy amphitheatre, on 1 August 1740, that Rule, Britannia! received its very first public performance. It was part of a masque called Alfred, with music by Thomas Arne and words by James Thomson, put on for the Covent Garden Company. Frederick staged it partly to celebrate his daughter’s third birthday and partly, it seems, because he enjoyed putting on a show.
So the next time you hear Rule, Britannia! at the Last Night of the Proms, you can reflect that it all started right here in a field in Buckinghamshire. We stood in the amphitheatre for a bit, looking out towards the river. You could see Cookham in the distance. It was easy to imagine the scene — torchlight, an audience seated on the grass, and that famous melody ringing out over the Thames for the very first time.
There’s also a lovely view from near here at Canning’s View, named after George Canning, who was briefly Prime Minister in 1827. He was apparently a regular visitor who liked to sit under a particular oak tree and admire the river. The tree came down in 2004, but the view is still there, and it’s still worth stopping for.
The Blenheim Pavilion and Octagon Temple
Not far from the amphitheatre is the Blenheim Pavilion, designed in 1727 by the Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni for the Earl of Orkney. Leoni also designed the Octagon Temple — now used as a chapel — and the two buildings are Grade I listed. The Pavilion was apparently intended for dining, relaxing, and even bathing, which sounds like a rather civilised way to spend an afternoon. Both structures are handsome things and give the woodland garden a sense of occasion.
The Water Garden
William Waldorf Astor bought Cliveden in 1893 and immediately set about leaving his mark on the place. He was an enormously wealthy American who’d come to England with serious ambitions in both property and politics, and he wasn’t shy about spending. One of his most distinctive contributions was the Water Garden, created in an area called Captain’s Field from around 1893 onwards, with further enlargements made by his son, the 2nd Lord Astor, in 1905.
It’s an East Asian-inspired garden built around a large pond filled with water lilies, carp, and a general air of calm that feels completely at odds with everything you’ve just been reading about the people who lived here. A winding path leads you round the water, through bamboo and exotic plantings, and stepping stones take you out across the pond to a six-sided Chinese pagoda at the centre. The pagoda itself has a fine history — it was originally made for the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1867, and Astor bought it from the sale of Bagatelle, the Marquess of Hertford’s villa near Paris, bringing it here in 1900. Karen picked her way across the stepping stones. I did not, having worn entirely the wrong shoes.
The planting scheme in this part of the garden was later refined by garden designer Norah Lindsay, who worked at Cliveden between the 1920s and 1930s for Nancy and Waldorf Astor, laying out the Water Garden among several other areas.
The Long Garden
The Long Garden sits along the northern boundary of the estate and was created by William Waldorf Astor around 1896. It stretches for well over 500 feet, which is why the name works. It’s a formal, hedged garden with fine topiary, statuary, and seasonal planting, and it has recently been restored, with York stone paving replacing the old path and a planting scheme that tips its hat to Norah Lindsay’s early twentieth century designs while being rather more ecologically minded.
It’s easy to walk past it without noticing, which would be a shame. Keep an eye out for the Shell Fountain, which is a useful landmark for finding your way in
The Rose Garden, Maze and Woodlands
The circular Rose Garden was designed by Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe in the early 1950s for the 3rd Lord Astor, and it’s a good place to be in June when the 900 or so repeat-flowering roses are putting on their show in shades of red, orange and yellow. The original roses died of disease and the garden was replanted in 2014, but it’s been keeping itself busy since then.
Just beyond the Rose Garden is the maze — half an acre of closely clipped yew, with a viewing platform at the centre. It’s satisfying in the way all mazes are, which is to say it’s both more confusing and more fun than you expect. There are families in there for quite some time.
The woodland walks extend across 300 acres of the wider estate and are dotted with statues, vistas, and garden buildings that Astor accumulated over the years. The Fountain of Love stands at the end of the main entrance avenue and is hard to miss. Kenneth Grahame, who wrote The Wind in the Willows, was apparently a regular visitor to Cliveden, and if you stand by the river on a quiet morning, you can almost see why.
💬 The Scandal You Can’t Avoid Mentioning
It would be remiss to write about Cliveden without at least acknowledging what happened here in the summer of 1961, because it shaped the estate’s reputation for decades and still gets brought up in any conversation about the place.
The 3rd Viscount Astor was hosting a party. One of his guests, the society osteopath Stephen Ward, had rented a cottage in the grounds and brought along his friends, including a nineteen-year-old by the name of Christine Keeler. Also at the party was John Profumo, Secretary of State for War. They met by the swimming pool. The rest, as they say, is history — or rather, it became one of the most damaging political scandals in post-war British history. Profumo’s subsequent affair with Keeler, and his decision to lie about it to Parliament, ended his career and badly damaged Harold Macmillan’s government. The Astors were devastated by the whole thing and left Cliveden for good in 1966.
The house went through a stint as an overseas campus for Stanford University from 1969 to 1983, before becoming the luxury hotel it is today. Meghan Markle stayed here the night before her wedding to Prince Harry in 2018, which the present management seem rather pleased about.
There’s a lot of history packed into one cliff-top estate. The Beatles filmed scenes from Help! here in 1965 and reportedly raced each other across the parterre between takes, which is not something you tend to read on the National Trust information boards but is entirely the sort of thing that happens at Cliveden.
We left as the clouds started looking a bit more purposeful, as they tend to do on a British summer afternoon. It’s a remarkable place — grand, complicated, frequently scandalous, and looked after beautifully. Well worth a full afternoon, comfortable shoes permitting.
Planning Your Visit to Cliveden House
| 📍 Location | Cliveden Road, Taplow, Maidenhead, Buckinghamshire, SL6 0JF | 🕖 Opening Times | Grounds: Daily 10:00 AM – 5:30 PM. House: Limited access via guided tours only (check website for dates). |
| 🌐 Website | nationaltrust.org.uk/cliveden | ||
| 📞 Phone | 01628 605069 | cliveden@nationaltrust.org.uk | |
| 🅿️ Parking | On-site car park available (charge applies for non-members) | ℹ️ Notes | Cliveden House itself operates as a luxury hotel. Grounds and garden access for National Trust members and paying visitors. Dogs welcome in some areas on leads. |
| 🎟️ Entry | Adults: £15.00 · Children: £7.50 · National Trust Members: Free |
🚗 Getting There
Cliveden House is located off the B476 Cliveden Road, near Taplow, approximately 2 miles north of Maidenhead. By road, follow signs from the A4 or B476 toward Taplow and Burnham. By train, the nearest station is Taplow on the Elizabeth Line, around 2 miles from the estate, with taxis available. Maidenhead station is also nearby with good connections from London Paddington. There is no regular bus service directly to the estate, so a taxi or car is recommended from the station.
The Best Time to Visit Southern England
Southern England is a year-round destination, but each season brings its own distinct character — from the blossoming gardens of spring to the frost-touched cathedrals of winter. Understanding what each season offers will help you plan a visit that matches your interests and expectations.
🌸 Spring (March – May)
Spring is one of the most rewarding times to visit Southern England. The countryside comes alive with colour as daffodils and bluebells carpet the woodlands, and the famous gardens of Kent, Surrey, and the Cotswolds reach their early peak. Temperatures climb gradually from around 8°C in March to a pleasant 16°C by May, making it ideal for walking and exploring.
The tourist crowds are noticeably thinner than in summer, particularly in April, which means shorter queues at popular attractions such as Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and the Seven Sisters cliffs. Easter can bring a spike in visitors, especially to coastal towns like Brighton and Eastbourne, so booking accommodation in advance around that period is advisable.
The weather in spring can be unpredictable — sunny mornings can quickly turn to showers — but the freshness of the season more than compensates. The light is crisp and flattering for photography, and the longer days mean more time to explore.
What to pack: Waterproof jacket, light layers, walking boots or sturdy trainers, a compact umbrella, sunglasses, a mid-weight jumper, smart-casual clothing for evenings out, and a small daypack.
☀️ Summer (June – August)
Summer is the most popular season for visiting Southern England, and it is easy to see why. Temperatures in July and August typically range between 20°C and 26°C, occasionally climbing higher during heatwaves. The coastline — particularly Dorset’s Jurassic Coast, the New Forest, and the Isle of Wight — draws enormous numbers of visitors, and the region’s outdoor events calendar is at its busiest.
Highlights include the Henley Royal Regatta, Glastonbury Festival, and the numerous village fêtes and open-air theatre productions that dot the countryside. The long evenings, with daylight often lasting until 9pm or later, allow for leisurely exploration of market towns, pub gardens, and coastal paths.
The drawback of summer is the crowds and the corresponding rise in accommodation prices. Popular spots such as Bath, Oxford, and the Cotswolds can feel very busy in July and August. Booking well in advance is essential, and visiting early in the morning or later in the afternoon can help you avoid the worst of the crowds at key attractions.
What to pack: Light breathable clothing, T-shirts and shorts, a packable rain jacket (summer showers are common), sunscreen, a sun hat, sandals or light trainers, a light cardigan for cooler evenings, and a reusable water bottle.
🍂 Autumn (September – November)
Autumn is arguably the most underrated season to visit Southern England. September in particular retains much of summer’s warmth — often reaching 18°C to 20°C — while the crowds thin considerably after the school holidays end. The autumn foliage transforms the New Forest, the South Downs, and the Weald into rich tapestries of gold, amber, and russet, making it an exceptional time for walking and photography.
Accommodation prices drop noticeably from mid-September onwards, and many of the region’s best restaurants and gastropubs are more accessible without the summer rush. The harvest season also brings food and drink festivals across the region, from apple-pressing events in rural orchards to seafood festivals along the Kent and Dorset coasts.
By November, temperatures can fall to between 5°C and 10°C, and the shorter days and increased rainfall require more preparation. However, the quieter atmosphere in cathedral cities such as Canterbury, Salisbury, and Winchester takes on a particular charm in the low season.
What to pack: Warm layers, a waterproof and windproof jacket, thermal underlayers for November, sturdy walking boots, a scarf and light gloves, smart-casual layers for evenings, and an umbrella.
❄️ Winter (December – February)
Winter in Southern England is mild by European standards but undeniably grey and damp. Temperatures hover between 3°C and 8°C across the region, with frosts more common inland and snow relatively rare except on higher ground such as the North and South Downs or Dartmoor. The days are short, with darkness falling by 4pm in December.
That said, winter has its own quiet pleasures. The Christmas markets in Winchester, Bath, and Chichester are genuinely atmospheric and far less commercialised than those in larger cities. Many of the region’s historic properties, managed by English Heritage and the National Trust, remain open and are wonderfully peaceful. Accommodation is at its cheapest, and you are unlikely to encounter queues at museums or galleries.
The weeks around Christmas and New Year are an exception, as domestic tourism peaks, particularly in Bath and Brighton. Travelling in January or February offers the best combination of low prices and genuine tranquillity.
What to pack: Heavy coat or insulated jacket, warm jumpers and thermals, waterproof boots, a hat and gloves, a scarf, a compact umbrella, and smart layers for festive events or evening dining.
🗓️ Overall Best Time to Visit
For most visitors, late spring (May) and early autumn (September) offer the finest overall experience of Southern England. The weather is at its most settled and agreeable, the countryside is at its most beautiful — whether in bloom or in autumn colour — and the crowds and prices are considerably more manageable than in peak summer. Those who enjoy cultural events and the full vibrancy of the English summer will find July equally rewarding, provided they plan ahead. Winter travel suits independent travellers looking for authenticity and value, particularly in the region’s historic cities during the festive season.
More to Explore
