GARDEN lovers living and visiting Worcestershire in May will have a chance to see a beautiful landscaped park usually kept under lock and key.

Hewell Grange, at Tardebigge, near Redditch, is an 18th century park, including a lake, landscaped by Capability Brown and modified in 1812 by Humphrey Repton – considered to be the last of the great English landscape designers.

It is also the home to Worcestershire prison HMS Hewell and will be opening for two days as part of the National Garden Scheme (NGS).

Visitors can expect to see bluebells, the lake and Repton Bridge, a formal garden, water tower, rock garden and mature woodland.

Hewell Grange is open on May 5 and 6 from 9.30am to 4pm and all visitors must book in advance by emailing roy.jones01:hmps.gsi.gov.uk before arrival. Anyone who arrives on spec will not be admitted.

Also opening on Saturday May 5 from 2pm to 4.30pm is the garden at New House Farm, Elmbridge, near Droitwich, where visitors will be treated to seeing rare trees, a perry wheel, a unique and charming water garden and a dry garden.

The garden at Whitcombe House, Overbury, in south Worcestershire is open on Saturday May 6 from 2pm to 5pm. This is a must for anyone who likes a classic English cottage garden.

It is an idyllic one-acre garden in a Cotswold setting and includes a spring-fed stream meandering through the property with typical moisture-loving plants and spring bulbs.

A true countryman’s garden can be found at 1 Church Cottage, Defford, near Pershore, which also opens on May 6 from 11am to 5pm. It offers an interesting layout, a Japanese-style feature, specimen trees, water features and much more. The garden is also open on May 7, 27 and 28.

The two-acre garden at White Cottage at Stocks Green, near Inkberrow, is opening from 11am to 4.30pm on May 6, 27 and 28. The garden offers magnificent spring colour courtesy of hundreds of snakes head fritillaries, a scenic woodland and herbaceous borders.

A huge garden at the former Benedictine Priory of Little Malvern Court, with stunning views over the Severn valley will be open on bank Holiday Monday May 7 from 2pm to 5pm.

It offers a chance to see an intriguing layout of garden rooms and a terraced round house created in the 1980s and a water garden that feds into a chain of lakes. There is a notable collection of old-fashioned roses, flowering trees, spring bulbs and shrubs as well as topiary hedges and fine trees.

The owners of Oak Tree House, Marlbrook, Bromsgrove - Di and David Morgan (also the Worcestershire NGS County Organiser) – will be offering visitors some musical entertainment when they visit on Saturday May 12.

The garden is open from 5pm to 9pm and the Catshill Methodist Church choir and the Catshill Methodist Men’s choir will be performing in the early part of the evening.

Shuttifield Cottage, Storridge opens on May 12, 13 and 26 from 1.30pm to 5pm and boasts a small deer park and vegetable garden with panoramic views as well as a chance to walk around a 20-acre wood with ponds and wild areas with rhododendrons and azaleas.