Melrose Abbey Gardens

Melrose, Scottish Borders
★★

As well as Melrose Abbey and the Commendator’s House Museum, Historic Environment Scotland look after a beautiful garden across the road. Colourful flowerbeds enjoy a splendid backdrop of the abbey on the other side of Abbey Street and seem to be free to enter (though you have to pay to look around the abbey). There’s strict competition for flower power here in Melrose – nearby Harmony and Priorwood Gardens are both bigger – but it’s still worth dropping by this third place finisher on a sunny summer day.