Day 1: Travel to Lincoln area, with stops enroute. Arrive at hotel late afternoon.
Day 2: Today we visit Belvoir Castle, ancestral home to the Duke of Rutland for nearly 1,000 years. Although it has been rebuilt four times since, the latest, finished in 1832, is now one of the finest examples of Regency architecture in the country. You take a self-led tour of the house seeing priceless artwork and opulent décor in the State Rooms. Visit the formal gardens which have undergone many transformations over the centuries. They include the Rose Garden, the Duchess Garden, Spiral Walk, the Hermits Garden and the Japanese Woodland. There are 15,000 acres of parkland too.
Day 3: Today we visit Lincoln, a fine city known for its Cathedral, castle and little alleyways in the old town with interesting shops and plenty of tea rooms! Your day includes entry to / Why not visit Lincoln Cathedral (entry not included), a spectacular Gothic building, once the world’s tallest building for over 200 years. See also Lincoln Castle (entry not included), built by William the Conqueror, it is unusual in that it has two mottes. Why not visit the Museum of Lincolnshire Life (free entry) showing the culture of Lincolnshire from 1750 to the present day, or the Usher Art Gallery (free entry) which houses a diverse collection of fine and decorative arts as well as sculptures and collections of clocks and watches from the 17th to 19th centuries. Café on site.
Day 4: Today we travel to Gainsborough Old Hall (English Heritage), a medieval manor house built in the late 15th Century see the magnificent spaces of the Great Hall before wandering winding corridors and up ‘dead-end stairs’. See how feasts were prepared in one of the best surviving medieval kitchens in the country and climb the 59 steps to the top of the tower for views across Lincolnshire. Café and shop on site. After we visit Brightwater Gardens is a collection of formal and naturalistic gardens. Surrounded by open countryside and magnificent views, the gardens here cover around 8 acres. Lovingly created and developed over the last 20 years, each area is full of different flowers, plants and trees. Self-service refreshments available.
Day 5: After breakfast we depart the hotel stopping at the beautiful town of Stamford, regarded as one of the finest stone towns in England. The pretty facades of the town are favourites with film and television producers – Stamford was used as Meryton in the 2005 Pride & Prejudice film and has also appeared in Middlemarch, the Golden Bowl, The Da Vinci Code, and, more recently, The Crown. There are many independent shops and the town has a bustling market day every Friday.
We arrive back in the local area late afternoon for transfer to your home.
