Milton’s Cottage is home to a unique literary garden, planted with trees, flowers and fruits that are referenced in his poetry.
He himself was a keen botanist (the poet Emily Dickinson called him “The Great Florist”) and few artists have been more influential on the development of the English garden aesthetic.
His descriptions of the Garden of Eden in Paradise Lost helped shape our informal gardening style. Horace Walpole, in On Modern Gardening (1770) said: “He seems with a prophetic eye of taste to have conceived, to have foreseen, modern gardening.”
Reflecting this, the garden at Milton’s Cottage has been laid out as a traditional English cottage garden – the only one in the Chilterns listed by English Heritage as a Grade II Registered Historic Garden.
Milton’s Cottage was secured for the nation after a public appeal in 1877 opened by Queen Victoria to prevent it being dismantled and moved to the USA. It has been open to the public ever since – making it one of the oldest writer’s house museums in the world.
Kelly O’Reilly, the Director, will be our guide.
Price: £7.50 members, £10 guests. Time: 10 30am – 12 00pm
To book please visit OGT Events on EventCube
Members of other Gardens Trusts can book at OGT members rate. An email with joining information will be sent 3-5 days before the visit, including further details and directions.