Find your way to festival along a trail of snowdrop garden locations

FOR the first time, the Shepton Snowdrop Festival has teamed up with Somerset's finest snowdrop gardens to create the Great Snowdrop Gardens Trail of Somerset.

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The annual festival has become increasingly popular, drawing visitors from far and wide including tours of snowdrop lovers from overseas.

Tour organisers and individual visitors to the festival often ask about the best places to see snowdrops; the new Great Snowdrop Gardens Trail of Somerset will take people to some of the finest and most interesting snowdrop gardens in the county.

Shepton Snowdrops is thrilled to have the support of Abigail Willis for the trail.

Somerset has a remarkable range of gardens, as Abigail, author of Secret Gardens of Somerset, knows very well: “February is often such a bleak time of year so thank goodness for galanthus! How fabulous to be able to get out into some of Somerset's most iconic gardens and celebrate the magical charm of snowdrops.

“T hope visitors and residents alike will enjoy following the Great Snowdrops Garden Trail and be inspired to return as the seasons unfold. Somerset's gardens are so special and worth exploring - whatever the time of year!”

Shepton Snowdrop Festival organisers hope to see visitors to the festival from further afield plan to stay a little longer, visit the gardens and enjoy all that the county has to offer.

‘The festival team has been working with Classic Cottages which has a great selection of cottages across Somerset.

Yeo Valley Organic Garden, one of only a handful of Soil Association accredited ornamental gardens, has been opening for the two days of the Shepton Snowdrop Festival for the last few years. At Yeo Valley, visitors can enjoy six and a half acres of bold and whimsical contemporary planting, and snowdrop bulbs in their thousands.

At the Bishop's Palace, in Wells, carpets of snowdrops welcome visitors to the gardens. Against a backdrop of the 800-year-old medieval palace, flowing wells and outer walls, a Snowdrop Walk takes visitors through the beautifully landscaped grounds, along the moat banks and into the Arboretum.