London’s best tulips — and where to see them
Published in The Times
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/london/article/londons-best-tulips-g2sntjsm0
You don’t have to leave the city to enjoy tulip displays — festivals and installations are popping up across London and just beyond. From National Trust properties and National Gardens Scheme participants to lesser-known spots that are free to visit, there’s a tulip garden for everyone.
Tulips are in their prime right now, so act fast to catch them before they’re gone. Here’s our list of where to go.
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Hampton Court Palace Tulip Festival
The growing team leader Martin Einchcomb with a display in the Great Fountain Garden for the Hampton Court Palace Tulip Festival
AFP
A tulip festival fit for a king. The tulip display at Hampton Court turns the palace grounds into a full sweep of colour, with more than 100,000 tulips planted across courtyards, formal beds and around the fountains in their 60 acres of gardens. You’ll see everything from elegantly displayed beds to the flowers floating in the Great Fountain, all set against the backdrop of Henry VIII’s palace.
It was named as Britain’s largest and greatest tulip heritage garden at the World Tulip Summit in 2024, so a day trip to Hampton Court Palace means truly capturing tulips at their best.
Details From £29, April 3-26; hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace
Victoria Embankment Gardens, Embankment
This is a fantastic — free — display right in the heart of the city. Every April the gardens fill out with tulips and, while it might be a smaller display than at some of the bigger festivals, it’s one of the most accessible. It’s a small pocket of spring right along the Thames, with beautiful views of the London Eye. Easy enough to pop to on a lunch break or a longer weekend visit: grab a coffee from Kippo’s coffee inside the park, walk it slowly, maybe sit for a bit if there’s a spare bench (there usually isn’t for long if the sun’s out).
Details Free; westminster.gov.uk
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Cannizaro Park, Wimbledon
Cannizaro Park in Wimbledon
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Often described as a hidden gem for southwest dwellers, Cannizaro Park is a London springtime secret worth discovering.
While it’s usually the rhododendron and azalea walks that draw the most attention in spring, the tulips threaded through the gardens are just as deserving. Apart from these floral delights, Cannizaro Park has much to boast — a sunken garden, Mediterranean garden, water garden and rose garden.
Details Free; cannizaropark.com
Eltham Palace, Eltham
Thousands of tulips bring spring colour to the grounds of Eltham Palace each year
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Eltham Palace in southeast London pairs medieval history with 1930s art deco interiors, in a strange merging that might give you architectural whiplash.
Wandering through the 19 acres of award-winning grounds, you move between the tulip gardens, bright, structured beds and a sunken rose garden. From here, you also get a fantastic view back towards the central London skyline. Follow a series of pools that’ll lead you to a moat and London’s oldest working bridge.
Details From £17, english-heritage.org.uk
Ham House, Richmond
Bridgerton fans, this one is for you as Ham House was recently used as a filming location for season four. If that isn’t enough to entice you, maybe its display of over 500,000 spring bulbs will be. The display features formal, historic varieties of tulip in the kitchen garden and thousands of naturalised, wild-style tulips across the grass squares known as plats behind the 17th-century house.
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Beyond the tulips, there’s the cherry garden, fruit trees in blossom and wisteria in the 17th-century kitchen garden. If you’re into historic buildings, this delivers — you can wander through the beer cellar, the Duchess’s bathroom and the historic kitchen. All of this can be found at the end of the District Line.
Details From £19.80; nationaltrust.org.uk
St James’s Park, Westminster
St James’s Park is one of the more central places to see tulips in London. There’s a mapped walking route through the park including suggested stops, practical details and a clear sense of distance. This stroll comes in at about 56 minutes, and it’s flat throughout.
Just next door is Buckingham Palace, where the Memorial Gardens hold meticulously designed beds that have been blooming each spring since 1901, planted as a tribute to Queen Victoria.
Details Free; royalparks.org.uk
The Dutch Garden in Holland Park, Kensington
The Dutch Garden in Holland Park
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It’s only fair to include the most aptly named location to find tulips in London, which is of course the Dutch Garden in Holland Park. Set in the centre of the park, just behind the café and in front of Holland House, the Dutch Garden is laid out as a series of enclosed, hedged beds, each planted tightly with tulips in blocks of colour.
Paths cut cleanly through the beds, so you can walk directly between them, close enough to catch the detail or take photos. Benches line the edges of the garden, making it an easy place to stop and sit among the flowers. Or, tiptoe through the tulips, as the song has it.
Details Free; rbkc.gov.uk
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Regent’s Park, Camden
Regent’s Park is beautiful in every season, but the tulips appearing in spring really make the Avenue Gardens come into their own. Around the fountains and formal beds, rows of tulips sit under the cherry blossom, all centred on the elegant water features.
In the St John’s Lodge Garden nearby, tulips aren’t the only sign of spring worth seeing. You’ll also find aconites, crocus, Iris reticulata, primroses, pulmonaria, scilla and wood anemone — a good run of early-season blooms.
Details Free; royalparks.org.uk
Hyde Park, Westminster
Hyde Park is one of London’s most popular parks, and its tulips are spread across it rather than kept to one display.
You’ll find them in pockets as you walk, which makes it better for a longer wander than a single stop. One of the best spots is the Italian Gardens, where tulips sit around the edges of the pools and fountains. Further along, near Kensington Palace, is the Princess Diana Memorial garden, a lovely sunken garden with springtime borders.
If you’ve finished your tulip route, Hyde Park is also a good place to feed birds: swans gather around the water, and you can always jump on a pedalo on the Serpentine boating lake.
Details Free; royalparks.org.uk
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Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Kew is never better than in springtime, with colour running through almost every corner of the gardens. Tulips appear across the wider grounds rather than in a single display; they are planted throughout grassy areas, alongside blossom and water.
Set across more than 300 acres, Kew is a Unesco world heritage site and home to the largest and most diverse botanical collection in the world. Kew Palace sits within the grounds for those interested in its history, but it’s just as easy to spend a few hours walking without an agenda, following the tulips as they appear and reappear across the site.
Details £25; kew.org
51 The Chase, Clapham
51 The Chase in Clapham
National Garden Scheme
In spring, about 2,500 tulips come through at 51 The Chase, the garden created over more than 40 years by the architectural designer Charles Rutherfoord. A lovely little corner in south London, what was once bramble-infested land is now an oasis of green, a real secret garden — almost a magic spot.
The garden is in full bloom at this time of year, with camellias, irises and tree peonies throughout, and a scented front garden setting the tone from the outset. A beautiful glass geodesic dome sits within the garden, sheltering seedlings, succulents and more subtropical planting.
Later in the season, the focus shifts to dahlias.
Details Free; ngs.org.uk/gardens
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Tulley’s Tulip Festival, West Sussex
If you’re willing to travel about an hour out of London, Tulley’s Farm is one of the larger tulip displays within reach of the city, with about 1.5 million planted in long, ordered rows stretching across the Sussex countryside with more than 100 varieties.
It’s set up so you can walk directly through the planting, with an observation wheel (33m/100ft high) if you want a view over the fields, and a lake with floating tulip beds. Some areas are lit later in the day, to continue the outing even as it gets darker.
There’s also a programme of street theatre and live music, alongside food stalls and Dutch-inspired offerings, plus a bar positioned within the grounds. But, it’s the scale of the planting that’s most impressive.
Details From £14.95; tulipfarm.co.uk