I’m a member of a Facebook group called Stunning Suffolk: a place for people to share their photos of the beauty of my home county. It was only through this group that I discovered the existence of the Porters Lodge Garden and Tearoom in Cavenham, just a 15-minute drive north-west of my home town of Bury St Edmunds.
Both the garden and the tearoom are open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There’s no charge to visit the tearoom (apart from what you spend on food and drink), and the gardens are only £5 entry per person, with under-18s visiting free of charge. For £20, though, you can buy an annual pass, meaning you can return as many times as you like. The money goes towards maintaining the garden so it continues to be a magical place that delights visitors of all ages.
When Craig Wyncoll and his late partner, Lionel Stirgess, moved to Porters Lodge nearly 40 years ago, they began the task of creating their incredible garden – which apparently won the “Britain’s Best Back Garden” accolade in 2004. In previous years, the gardens were only opened once every year for a fundraising event, but since the summer of 2023 they’ve been open every weekend.
There’s a small car park at the entrance, just off Icknield Way in Cavenham, with a few overflow parking spaces by the side of the road, too. A small gate takes you directly into the tearoom area, with plenty of outdoor seating and two small indoor spaces, one of which contains the tearoom itself.
A whiteboard highlights the day’s selection of mains, while the counter is laden with cakes and bakes of all sorts. It was incredibly busy when we visited but we still needed to queue at the tearoom counter to pay for our garden entry, which took a while.
And so, through the narrow pathway we went to the gardens, immediately faced with a couple of deer sculptures and a small bridge that led across to a lawn, the main house visible in front of us.
I don’t want to spoil the magic of the Porters Lodge garden too much here: it’s a place that needs to be visited to enjoy thoroughly. There’s something different to see at every turn, though: from the bells to ring on one side of the bridge to the sculptures and statues dotted throughout; from the bright red pagoda in one corner to the majestic deer on top of a water feature where the flowing water forms diamond patterns.
There are winding, hedge-lined pathways to explore, and even an archway with a drawbridge. The highlight for my son was the fern-filled room with high-backed wicker chairs, which led through to a suite of stepping stones across another water feature.
Wander through the maze of hedges and you’ll stumble across a greenhouse, in front of which various flowers jostled for the attention of the swarms of butterflies and bees present during the dying days of summer.
It’s clear how much love and care the Porters Lodge owners put into creating this rural paradise – even as far as the most beautiful toilet block I’ve ever seen!
Type postcode IP28 6DB into your sat nav, and make your way over to Porters Lodge on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Whether you’re a garden lover, you simply love exploring new places or you fancy a cuppa and a slice of cake somewhere different, you won’t be disappointed.