Remarkable Places in Britain: Eden Project, Cliveden, Blenheim and Arundel

Here are four places in Britain well worth seeing, from a futuristic botanical garden to a thousand-year-old castle.

Eden Project, Cornwall

The Eden Project is a vast, futuristic botanical garden whose domes recreate rainforests and Mediterranean gardens. Around the biomes stretch fields and meadows with 3,000 plant species, where familiar and unfamiliar trees and grasses become a true wonder. Did you know that ginkgo biloba grew on our planet 350 million years ago? That there are 3,000 varieties of tea? That some yews are 3,000 years old? After visiting this park you will see nature with completely different eyes.

Cliveden House, Buckinghamshire

Cliveden House is a historic mansion on a hill above the Thames, about 40 minutes from London. The house and its gardens belong to the National Trust. Cliveden’s early history is linked to the 2nd Duke of Buckingham. In the late 19th century William Waldorf Astor bought the estate and made it a centre of British society: Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin and George Bernard Shaw, the Kennedys, Princess Margaret and Elizabeth II all stayed here.

Today Cliveden House and its vast grounds operate as a five-star hotel, part of Iconic Hotels & Resorts. Guests can touch 350 years of history in magnificent rooms, visit an innovative spa, play tennis, take a vintage boat or a carriage ride and join the highlights of the English social calendar, from Royal Ascot to the Royal Windsor Horse Show.

Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire

The ancestral home of the Dukes of Marlborough and one of England’s largest palace and park ensembles, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Winston Churchill was born here, on the edge of Woodstock, and the palace has an exhibition devoted to him. You can walk through state rooms with priceless paintings, tapestries and furniture, listen to the organ, stroll through the landscaped gardens and maze, tour the park by buggy or miniature train and stay in modern cottages on the estate.

Arundel Castle, West Sussex

Arundel Castle is one of England’s most spectacular historic sites. It is not formally a royal residence – it belongs to the ancient family of the Dukes of Norfolk – but it is every bit as grand. Nearly a thousand years old, it preserves antique furniture, stained glass, tapestries and original works by Van Dyck, Thomas Gainsborough and Canaletto. Its courtyards host historical battle re-enactments, and its gardens, a landscape masterpiece, have won the British “Historic Garden of the Year” award. Be sure to visit before Christmas (20 November – 2 January), when the gardens glow with lanterns and everyone comes to meet Santa.

Want to see England in a new light? Our London team will create a sightseeing programme of castles and palaces with stays at the finest hotels.