Tour of English Rose Gardens

I can’t comment much on the gardens but travelling around like this by taxi will cost a small fortune. It’d be much cheaper to hire a car in my view. Driving on the left isn’t that bad 😀

I have been to both the RHS gardens and they are quite large sites so the person with mobility issues may struggle to walk around them. I guess it’ll apply to some of the other gardens too. You may be able to borrow an electric mobility scooter at these places or rent one for the whole of your visit.

There is a high-priced industry for touring multiple English gardens, because it is so time-consuming and hard to do. I suggest you reconsider your plan. I like helping posters here, but even if I had been to more gardens, I would have to spend days composing 500-plus words on each garden for what you need. And it wouldn't solve the problem of "base towns", London train stations, and one-day combinations. Here's one tiny copy and paste (of myself) covering one small aspect of the problem:

Just an idea: When we used a taxi (2019) to get to Sissinghurst (NOT in the Cotswolds) from the train station, the driver mentioned in the course of conversation that taxis are in huge demand during school opening and closing hours. He declined to change our long-in-advance email return reservation from 5PM to 4PM that day. Some students are cheaper to move with taxis than they would be with school busses. So it can be hours of delay if you try to get a cab at peak times without a [EDIT: fully paid in advance] reservation.

Do you need a beach rollator or wheelchair? Some paths are too narrow for them, even if you can obtain one. Many rural train stations are not level with the interior train seating floor. Many back gardens require entering and leaving a house with steps.

This is a VERY difficult project.

It will be complicated to get to all these places without a car but it's certainly not impossible. It needs some planning but you have more than a year to do it.

If you fly into Manchester you could easily add RHS Bridgewater to your trip - it's just to the west of the city. It's the RHS's newest garden but is maturing nicely now. It's about 14 miles from the airport. You could book into the Worsley Park Marriott and get a pre-booked car to take you there. The garden is less than 2 miles away.

Then a bus or taxi into Manchester for a direct train to Wolverhampton, which is closest to Albrighton (note sp). Wolverhampton is no one's idea of a tourist town but it will have convenient hotels in the centre close to the station.

For RHS Rosemoor I would probably stay in Barnstaple. Bideford is a bit nearer but the train stops at Barnstaple, so you would need a bus or taxi to get to Bideford, which is not much nearer to Rosemoor. From Bath the train to Barnstaple is only about 3 hours with two simple changes at Bristol and Exeter.

For Peter Beale I would take a train to Norwich and then a taxi for about 30 minutes. I'm not an expert on the other locations but I'm sure others will be along soon.

On mobility I remember getting a wheelchair at Rosemoor for my mother-in-law, who was in a similar position - she could walk but not fast and not for long. With the wheelchair she found herself at eye and nose level to the flowers in the raised beds and she loved it. I'm sure that you could do the same at many other gardens although there might be some where the walkways are too narrow.

What a lovely idea! I hope at least some of it works out for you!

If your plans happen to take you near Conwy, Wales, my favorite garden during our England/Wales trip was Bodnant Gardens, I didn’t realize how many different rose gardens were there, so each one was a gorgeous reveal! Also, the long golden arch canopy of Laburnum flowers were in bloom. That trip was the first two weeks of June.

Your plan at the moment does have you criss crossing England, presumably to visit particular rose gardens that you have found. England has gardens that you can visit all over the place, many, many more than you have listed.

You might like to have at look at this site -https://ngs.org.uk. It's a national charity called the National Garden Scheme, that coordinates the openings of private gardens across the country to raise money for a variety of gardens. You can search on the site for any specific geographical area, say next to some of the bigger gardens you have listed and can also search specifically for rose gardens. Most of the gardens are private and probably open for one or two days a year, mostly at weekends. But obviously those gardens focusing on roses are going to be open when you plan to be over here.

Potential day trip from London could be Hampton Court Palace, which now has a featured Rose Garden, over where Henry VIII used to do jousting, along with its other gardens. There are several times each year when the gardens are free, and you don’t need to pay the Palace admission price just to see gardens, but while there are free days in May and September, there aren’t any in June 2026.

1. David Austin Roses, Albrighton, Shropshire Stay in Telford, Shrewsbury (more direct train), or Wolverhampton

I’m not going to reply to all of it, but for this bit of the trip, if you’re choosing between Telford, Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury as a place to stay, then Shrewsbury is a no-brainer. It’s an attractive historic old market town with lots of half-timbered buildings. Telford is mostly a new town (although handy for Ironbridge) and Wolverhampton is a an ex-industrial West Midlands city that’s a mix of nice Victorian architecture and lots and lots of empty shops.

One of the things which concerns me is the apparent number of one night stays (it may just be how it is written).

Albrighton does have it's own railway station (on the Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury route) as does Attleborough- hourly service on the Norwich to Stansted Airport via Ely and Cambridge route. So it could be a day trip from any of those, as well as from London.

RHS Wisley has an hourly bus specifically to the garden from Kingston upon Thames (Falcon buses #714).

Mottisfont has a station (Mottisfont & Dunbridge) on the Salisbury to Southampton via Romsey route- hourly service

Great Torrington has the every 2 hours or so bus #5B from outside Exeter St Davids Station, which then continues to Barnstaple station, various other local routes from Barnstaple and the every 3 hours #317 Okehampton Town Centre (not the station) to Bideford bus.

So in most cases the challenge is looking for short distance more local taxis to and from the respective bus/rail heads.