Festival of snowdrops comes to Boughton House

18th February, 2019

The fourth annual Snowdrop Festival will be celebrated at Northamptonshire’s Boughton House later this month.

The Gardens at the stunning stately home will open to the public for the first time this year on Sunday 24th February in conjunction with the National Garden Scheme’s seasonal festival.

For one day only, visitors can enjoy the first blooms of the New Year and pay a visit to the Estate’s Walled Garden and Grade 1 Designed Landscape, with a portion of the entrance ticket proceeds being donated to charity.

David Cullum, Parks and Gardens Manager at Boughton House, said: “The arrival of snowdrops across our Estate offers an early sign the land is starting to wake from its winter slumber, and with warmer than average temperatures in recent days, they arrived a little earlier than expected this year. We encourage people to enjoy them during our special open day this month.

“As well as being a great opportunity to take in a refreshing winter walk in our Gardens and parklands, where we have been hard at work restoring avenues of historic trees in recent months, the Snowdrop Festival also raises money for a number of important causes as it travels across the UK, and we’re delighted it’s making a stop here at Boughton.”

David has recently embarked upon a project to map the varieties of snowdrops across the Estate alongside amateur galanthophile Derek Warren from Kettering.

Derek (72) said: “I’m a retired telephone engineer with a keen interest in gardening. I particularly enjoy walking at Boughton Estate and together with David have helped identify many varieties of plicatus and nivalis snowdrops in recent months. We have more work ahead of us to identify all of the species in the Gardens, and this is a great time to catch them in bloom.”

The Gardens will open between 11am and 3pm on Sunday 24th February. Tickets cost £6 for adults, £3 for children and £14 for a family of two adults and two children.

Visitors can enjoy light bites in 18th century stable block and peruse the gift shop’s wide variety of crafts, food, jewellery, books and more.

Find out more about the National Gardens Scheme at https://www.ngs.org.uk.