TWO gardens will open to the public for the first time.

Winchcombe gardens will be on show to the public for the National Garden Scheme on Sunday July 1.

One of them, The Gate, belongs to garden historian Vanessa Berridge, author of the newly published, Great British Gardeners: From Early Plantsmen to Chelsea Medal Winners.

The garden at St Mary’s, Cowl Lane, benefits from having been created on the soil of the garden belonging to Winchcombe Abbey.

It is an oasis set just off Winchcombe’s busy high street, with views up to Langley Hill. Recently redesigned, it has drifts of seasonal planting, with grasses and perennials, set round a large lawn, fringed with parkland trees. Box edging to the beds gives structure and definition.

The Gate, North Street, by contrast, is a former coaching inn, with a walled garden in what would once have been the inn’s stable yard. There is a mix of shrubs, perennials and annuals, with many unusual plants both in the beds and in pots on the terraces of the garden.

A separate walled kitchen garden, where vegetables, fruit and flowers are grown, will also be open, and plants grown in the garden will be for sale.