Unfortunately I was disappointed. I felt that after paying £6 each to visit (we were a party of 3) there was very little to see. One of the main paths was shut for repair, which left you walking up and back the same path. The Chapel may have been lovely, but there was a Service going on at the time and we couldn't walk around it. Being Spring, there were Rhododendrons and Camellias out, but there were very few spring bulbs to look at. I did actually complain and I was offered a full refund, of which I took half my money back. It is a shame as this place has much potential.

If you like or have a passion for plants or a green environment this place is an excellent visit. What makes it remarkable is that the people running it are doing it on a pretty much volunteer basis, we had a lovely chat to the man who gave us quite an in depth history of the place and him and his daughter work like heroes to keep it going. There were two lovely dogs who we made friends with, some outstanding sculptures to see and fantastic walled gardens, they also have sheep and horses. The daughter runs a cafe in an old airstream caravan which serves delicious food too. We chose scones and lemon drizzle cake but there were a selection of very fresh lunches on offer. There was a wonderful woodland walk through to the estuary. It would be fantastic if these guys could find some investment to support their endeavours as this would change the place from good to great. Their efforts deserve 10 out of 10 and with a little help it would be out of this world. All in all well worth a visit for couples, families and groups. Thank you Upton castle.

We visited as a group from our gardening society. As we walked up the drive to the Castle (subsequently realised someone had been standing in front of the sign directing us to the correct route), we got a real telling off by a lady who was working in the gardens. She bahaved as if she owned the place, which she probably did. We endeavoured to apologise for our error, but her high handed attitude and condescending looks put a dampner on what was otherwise a nice visit. Overpriced, poor quality food and slow service fron the under resourced catering team was also disappointing. However, the people serving in the catering van were lovely - very apolgetic and obviously embarassed at not being able to provide a better service. Our initial experience was one of being made unwelcome and ripped off. Having said that, the gardens and sculpture trail were lovely and enjoyable. A few lessons in customer service, and treating paying customers with some respect would have made it a muh better experience. I would not return in a hurry and certainly would not recommend it to the many garden clubs and societies that I am involved with.