The Greenhouse Retreat is a five-room guesthouse set inside a working botanical garden in the Slad Valley. Four acres of herbaceous borders, a restored Victorian fernery, and a tea salon where the mint is cut from the border and the scones are baked at dawn. Come for a night, stay for the season.
Reserve a room
A south-facing room on the ground floor of the old potting shed, looking directly into the restored fernery. Linen bedding, a cast-iron reading chair, and a private terrace where the maidenhair fern spills over the stone. Best for guests who want to wake already inside the garden.
The top floor of the main house, beneath the eaves, with a skylight set over the bath so you can lie in warm water and watch the apple blossom move. A sitting room with a writing desk, a woodburner for cool evenings, and a small library of garden writing left by guests before you.
The garden is the reason most guests come. It has been built over fifteen years around the bones of an old market garden — a walled herbaceous border, a fernery restored from a ruin, a wildflower meadow left to the bees, and a working kitchen garden that feeds the salon. Our head gardener, Iona, leads a slow walk each Saturday morning.
We came for one night and stayed four. Iona walked us through the fernery in the rain and we took tea until the light went. The kind of place that makes you rearrange your life on the train home.
The Orangery suite at dawn, with the apple blossom moving against the skylight, is something I will keep for a long time. The scones are not a small thing either. They are the reason.
A guesthouse run by people who clearly love the garden more than the business, which is exactly why the business works. The mint tea is cut in front of you. That is the whole story.
We take a maximum of ten guests at a time and the rooms fill quickly in spring and early autumn. Send us a note with your dates and we will write back within a day with what is open. Tea is included with every stay.
Reserve a room