To call the Garden of Cosmic Speculation a 'garden' underplays it enormously: there are forty main areas — which take in gardens, bridges, sculpture, terraces, architecture and more — across a site that covers thirty acres. And the whole thing will have you alternately gazing in awe, scratching your chin in disbelief and laughing out loud, as the website's description suggests: 'The Garden of Cosmic Speculation uses nature to celebrate nature, both intellectually and through the senses, including the sense of humour.'
If Lewis Carroll, Willy Wonka and Capability Brown got together, they might create something very like the late Charles Jencks’s psychedelic Garden of Cosmic Speculation.
It’s only open for one day a year (usually the first Sunday in May), through Scotland’s Gardens Scheme, and proceeds go to Maggie’s Centres.
As you’d expect from the landscape at the home of a father of post-Modernism, there are topsy-turvy landforms, striking sculptures, ‘black holes’ and Dali-esque proportions.
It's a magnificent spectacle that's quite marvellously bonkers, in the best possible way.
Find out more and get details of opening at gardenofcosmicspeculation.com, or see more of Secret Britain
Burrow Mump, Somerset: Alfred the Great's lookout point
The famed hill in Burrowbridge is today's Secret Britain spot.
North Meadow, Cricklade: An ancient field where half a million wildflowers create a wall of colour
The spectacular North Meadow, in Cricklade, Wiltshire, is a Secret Britain sight we should all enjoy at least once.
Credit: Getty/Alamy/Shutterstock
The secret history of the milestone, from Roman Britain to Industrial Revolution and beyond
The milestones which help travellers find their way across Britain have been a feature of the nation's highways and byways
Humphry Repton's 'secret country gem' at Endsleigh, one of the finest hotel gardens in Britain
Non Morris explores the historic 100-acre grounds of Endsleigh, Olga Polizzi’s alluring West Country hotel, designed by Humphry Repton in
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By what name is the shallow nest of the hare known? It's the Country Life Quiz of the Day, November 3, 2025It's Monday which means we're back with the first Country Life quiz of the week.
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