Our Sir Harold Hillier Gardens Review

Sir Harold Hillier Gardens is a beautiful large gardens set up a guy named Sir Harold Hillier(you guessed that right?) and he was the son of a world famous conifer genius, apparently! His family ran a garden centre in Winchester, which is not too far from the gardens. Sir Harold’s father and grandfather were plant fanatics and Sir Harold intended to extend their plant collection over his life, and that he did! Plants from all over the world are in these gardens and the gardens are famous world over.

Now I am not a gardening fanatic whatsoever, I am not a big fan of plants or flowers or much in nature I guess. I can appreciate birds and plants, but it’s in no way a passion. But I do love to go to these gardens, I have a been a few times in my life, once on an educational visit, and a couple of times as a child and once or twice as a parent. It’s just a beautiful, peaceful haven away from a busy life!
They also have a lovely little tea room far from the entrance of the place, situated in an old house that’s obviously been situated where it is for a very long time, and seen different owners, but it’s very pretty.
There is also a more canteen type of restaurant which does a nice afternoon tea of a scone, jam, cream and tea for less than £4.00. I recommend!
Adult entry is usually 8-9£ and under 17s are free.

Jijah’s favourite thing about the garden’s is the ‘tree house’. It has a huge slide!

Jijah’s other favourite bit about the gardens is the education garden. It is pretty great!!

It has a bamboo foresty area with musical poles and very large ‘drum sticks’ to play them with, a magical water dish that is supposed to hum(we couldn’t get it to work!) and a pond area, herb garden…Here are some pics 🙂

We would really recommend a visit, it’s a lovely place for preschoolers and there is lots of grass for picnics or baby crawling in the summer! I’ll certainly be going back, especially now I have a year’s pass! (Thanks, Grandparents!) 1 year’s pass was cheaper than buying four adult tickets, and for the first time at least you can get three guests in free! Great!

Thanks for reading!