Join Sky Arts and the National Trust as we take a journey around the country and across the centuries to discover Britain's most beautiful landscape and pleasure gardens. With unprecedented access to the Trust's properties and exclusive insights into the gardens' original designs and plans, this five-part series brings to life the stories behind each remarkable garden and the people who designed and built them.

Hidcote Manor is an Arts & Crafts masterpiece hidden in the heart of the Cotsworlds, which features splendid panoramic views from its outdoor 'rooms', which in turn are linked by vistas and furnished with topiary and rare plants. Often hailed as the greatest and most English of gardens, it was conceived by American millionaire Major Lawrence Johnston, a naturalised Englishman and visionary plantsman who, in spite of having no formal training, created what was labelled at the time "a work of genius, second only to Versailles".

One of the most inventive and influential gardens of the 20th Century, Hidcote features profuse planting, the result of Johnston's never-ending quest for new plants that took him to the Alps, Africa, Burma and Taiwan and elements including hedges, walls, water and paving that epitomises the ethos of the Arts and Crafts movement.


Inspired to get out into the garden?
The Sky Arts Music Service has a garden-inspired playlist, featuring classical tracks such as Rimsky-KorsakovThe Flight of the Bumble-Bee and Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending all ready for you to jump on your ride-on mower or prune your window box with. Just click here to listen.