Jardins du manoir de la Massonnière

Set around an old 16th-century manor house, the gardens of La Massonnière were designed by Marguerite Weinberg and her son, the painter Pierre Kendal Bushe, inspired by the gardens of British cottages.

The charm begins as soon as you arrive: a long avenue of majestic plane trees leads you into the large square main courtyard overlooking the manor house and its dovecote, one of the largest in the region in the days of the lords. The Manor's surrounding wall, punctuated by loopholes offering small views of the landscape, structures the space around which the gardens follow one another.

As you stroll along, you'll discover a small perennial garden, followed by the French garden, where the boxwoods are trimmed into parterres of embroidery and the silhouettes of the topiaries are inspired by the tradition of the French gardens established by Le Nôtre. At La Massonnière, the principle of the classical garden is based on the extension of architecture into the landscape, the stretching out of space and a form of symmetry in relation to the buildings.

The rose garden and the flower garden follow on from the one-hectare kitchen garden enclosed by hedges of hornbeam combining trellised fruit trees, vegetables, flowers and English-style mixed borders. There are frequent views over the countryside, so that you feel you are in an intimate, enclosed garden, while visually taking in the whole area.

Two small greenhouses house seedlings and a collection of succulents imported from the south of France. To the west of the park surrounding the Manor, the walk takes us around a large, recently restored pond housing frogs, carp and aquatic plants, surrounded by a collection of maples and a woodland garden. An arboretum is currently being created, so you can enjoy and be inspired by the Latin names of the garden's remarkable trees and species on the labels.

You will then see the avenue of hundred-year-old lime trees before reaching the large meadows made up of orchards and an avenue of hazel trees guided by trellises.

The tour can be self-guided or guided by the landscape gardeners trained at Versailles, who have been working on the restoration of the gardens since 2017 and will be on hand to welcome you.