Painswick Rococo Garden

This garden is warped. And it’s all the better for it. Gardens are never uniform, they might share similar styles and influences but the human factor means no two are ever the same. This, for many, is what makes them interesting beyond an observance of whatever rare horticultural specimens they may contain. Painswick Rococo is an extreme example; it isn’t just about the plants, it’s all about the atmosphere. Painswick Rococo is a true pleasure grounds, a place to walk in, to picnic basking in the sun, or doze off whilst reading a book.

The garden’s unusual ambience is the result of its Rococo design. In relation to gardens, Rococo was s a transitional period between the formal, structured and symmetrical designs of the early 18th century and the more naturalistic ‘English Landscape’ gardens which became ubiquitous by the end of the century. Rococo gardens then, with their incorporation of colourful follies of varying architectural styles, and twisting paths contrasting with formal vistas, became unfashionable relatively quickly. So over the next 200 years the garden altered dramatically and the original Rococo layout was lost.

Luckily, in 1976 an exhibition of the art of Thomas Robins revealed a painting which clearly details what the garden had once looked like. The renewal of interest in the Rococo garden generated by the exhibition resulted the decision to restore Painswick Rococo to its former (twisted) glory. After much hard work the garden is now very much the mirror image of Robbins’s painting, a step back in time in the heart of the picturesque Cotswolds.

Painswick Rococo Garden, Painswick, Gloucestershire. GL6 6TH

Opening Times:
10th January - 31st October. Daily 11.00 - 17.00.