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.

Stourhead is a superb garden which was at the forefront of the English landscape movement. Designed by Henry Hoare II, whose family occupied the mansion from the early 18th Century, the gardens include a lake created by damning the river Stour and a number of enchanting vistas inspired by paintings of Italy, brought back by young men fresh from their newly-fashionable Grand Tour. Such was the accomplishment of this wondrous garden that Henry Hoare II became known as 'Henry the Magnificent'.

Tucked away in a secluded Wiltshire valley, the garden is a tranquil oasis, dotted throughout with classical features and follies including Gothic ruins, temples and monuments. Featuring rare planting around the lake and mature woodlands with a collection of exotic trees, not to mention the Palladian mansion filled with Georgian treasures, it's easy to see why Stourhead is the Trust's most visited property.


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.