Mottistone Manor Garden (National Trust)

This magical garden, with gentle grassy slopes and terraces affording distant views to the sea, is full of delights and surprises. Surrounding an attractive Elizabethan manor house (not open) and set in an idyllic sheltered valley, the 20th-century garden boasts colourful borders and an organic vegetable plot, as well as Mediterranean-style planting to take advantage of its extreme southerly location. Its many surprises include a young olive grove and a traditional tea garden set alongside The Shack, a unique cabin retreat designed as their summer drawing office by the architects John Seely (2nd Lord Mottistone) and Paul Paget. Visitors of all ages are enchanted by Mottistone's cast of Flowerpot characters, and there are delightful walks from the garden onto the downs across the adjoining Mottistone Estate.