Levens Hall Encourages 2026 Visitors to Slow Down

South Lakes historic family home, Levens Hall and Gardens, has reopened its doors for the 2026 season, with a promise to share all of the joys of slow art and slow living with its visitors.

The attraction is renowned across the globe for being home to the extraordinary experience that is the world’s oldest topiary garden.  This year, however, it is highlighting the back story to that garden, by billing it as ‘Britain’s greatest garden art collaboration’.

The Topiary Garden – and various other parts of the gardens too – are the living embodiment of the painstaking efforts and collaborative contributions of just 11 head gardeners since 1694.    All have demonstrated extreme patience in cultivating trees beyond compare on the world topiary stage, developing the slow art form of topiary over the course of 332 years.

The slow art on display in the topiary garden, will this year be complemented by artistic paintings displayed on giant easels around the gardens.  Ten large-scale watercolours by artist Bob Sutcliffe will feature in an outdoor Slow Garden – Life Within exhibition, that visitors can explore at their leisure.

Those strolling the Levens Hall gardens will be invited to pause and inquisitively view the works, which each hide some form of wildlife, be that a blackbird, bees, a hare or something else.  Some creatures will be well camouflaged, making this a great ‘spotting’ game for visitors with children.

The aim is to deepen the experience within the historic gardens, by encouraging quiet observation.  In the contemplative outdoor gallery setting of Levens Hall and Gardens, this will encourage mindfulness and relaxation, particularly if visitors allow their minds to drift and consider the 11 men who have literally shaped the trees and landscape around them.

One of the early season joys – shifting light across precisely clipped yew – has been captured by Bob Sutcliffe.  Other delights, including reflections on still water – as found in the Fountain Garden – are also to be discovered.  Using the works as inspiration for ‘quiet time’ is sure to be useful for season ticket holders, who can visit as many times as they wish during the season.  Using their powers of observation to detect subtle changes in these slow gardens will be enriching and rewarding.

The fusion of art and nature will also be found this year within Levens Kitchen, where a major mural work was created late in 2025.  This is yet to be viewed by many seasonal visitors to Levens Hall and Gardens and is likely to create a big wow factor on first sight.

The eye-catching and alluring mural, created in acrylics, is the work of Chinoiserie artist, Freddie Whimsett, an artist who has worked on commissions for names such as Alice Temperley, Kate Moss, Paul O’Grady and Kit Harrington. It features British trees, plants and animals either native, or imported, at the time the building of Levens Hall was finished, at around 1820.  This includes the rare black fallow deer, specifically found in Levens Deer Park.

Other aspects of Levens Hall have been incorporated too, including elements from a mural that already existed within the private Chinese Room in the south wing.

Easter will also provide an opportunity to celebrate nature, with children provided with a set of bunny ears, as they head off on a Spring Scavenger Hunt.  Keen eyes will again be required within the Elizabethan mansion too, where painted wooden eggs will be hidden on an Egg Hunt trail.  They might be found on Napoleon’s saddle, or maybe the Duke of Wellington’s campaign bed, so families will need to keep their wits about them.

If parents then want their children to learn the joys of slow art, they can sign them up for an Easter art workshop with Bob Sutcliffe, who will awaken and inspire their creativity.

The ‘slow’ start to the season is deliberate and the same emphases will be evident right through to October 3 at Levens Hall and Gardens.  During this time frame, visitors will be able to indulge in their own slow living joys, or in arranged activities.  These include meditation and outdoor yoga sessions, Shakespearean and other works performed in the gardens and workshops in which they can patiently craft a pot, wreath or painting.

“We are the custodians of an ancient garden that is unparalleled across the world and which has been shaped across time, purely thanks to a willingness to devote numerous hours to cultivating life in an unhurried way,” says Levens Hall and Gardens’ owner, Richard Bagot.  

“In this fast-moving world, our centuries-old gardens are an antidote to AI, computer games and high-tech lifestyles, reminding us what is important and what endures.  By immersing visitors more fully in nature and evoking their responses to it through art, we hope to add a new dimension to our experience and, for the time they with us, transport them to a slower, more contemplative time and place.”

More details about the attraction can be found at www.levenshall.co.uk

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Editors notes

Levens Hall & Gardens is a historic house in the South Lakes, Cumbria, close to Kendal and home to the world's oldest topiary gardens, dating from 1694, created by French garden designer, Guillaume Beaumont. The Hall is a stunning Elizabethan house built around a 13th century pele tower and has close links to the Duke of Wellington, as well as various items which once belonged to him and Napoleon Bonaparte. Levens Park is home to the rare Bagot goats gifted to the Bagot family and a place in which to stroll and enjoy nature. Levens Kitchen is the contemporary new cafe, full of delights for cake lovers and foodies alike.