Things to do in Waterperry

Waterperry is a village of a few hundred people in the valley of the River Thame. It sits seven miles east of Oxford, close to the Buckinghamshire line. What draws people is a garden and a house.

The garden and the house

Beatrix Havergal opened a horticultural school for women here in 1932. It ran until she retired in 1971. What survives is eight acres of ornamental garden inside a twenty-acre site around a seventeenth-century mansion.

• The long border — the herbaceous run the school was known for.
• The formal gardens — knot garden, roses, and a walk along the Thame.
• St Mary the Virgin — a part-Saxon church with medieval glass, box pews and brasses.
• The house — bought by a philosophy school in 1971 and used for residential courses.
• The plant centre — nursery, gallery and teashop, where most visits end.

The retreats run out of the house, not the garden. A four-day yoga and cleanse programme costs several hundred pounds with board. You book the course, not the night.

Oxford, seven miles west

Most of what sells from here is really Oxford, under half an hour away by road.

• The colleges — Christ Church, Magdalen and New College, each charging its own entry.
• The Bodleian — the Divinity School, and the Radcliffe Camera on the square outside.
• Self-guided walks — puzzle routes around the alumni, the pubs and the film locations.
• Days out from London — a private car there and back, with lunch and a college or two.

Practical

• Season. The garden peaks between May and September, and the long border is at its best in high summer. Winter hours are shorter.
• Weather. Mild and damp, summer highs near 22C, light rain often. Paths turn soft after a wet week.
• Getting here. A car, effectively. Buses reach Wheatley two miles off, and taxis cover the rest.
• Oxford parking. The centre is hostile to cars, so use the park-and-ride sites on the ring road.
• Colleges. They shut to visitors during exams and events, so check the day before.
• Booking ahead. Residential courses fill months out; the garden takes you as you arrive.