SNOWDROP Sundays will be starting up soon at Mapperton House.

See the first signs of spring in the gardens at Mapperton House near Beaminster on Sunday February 5 and Sunday February 12 February.

The gardens will be open from 11am to 4pm. Admission is £4.50 for adults, under 16s free.

Teas, coffees and cakes will be available in the Sawmill Cafe. Proceeds will support the National Gardens Scheme and Perennial, the gardeners' charity.

Mapperton House & Gardens are located two miles from Beaminster in the heart of the Dorset countryside.

These Italianate terraced valley gardens surround the golden Ham stone Tudor/Jacobean manor house, stable blocks, dovecote and All Saints Church. The house was voted 'the Nation’s Finest Manor House' by Country Life in May 2006.

The 11th Earl and Countess of Sandwich have made Mapperton their home since the early 1980s. The Montagu family, which has owned farmland south of the house since the 1760s, first moved to Mapperton from Hinchingbrooke House, near Huntingdon, in 1956.

Mapperton House & Gardens have been used as the location for several feature films, including Restoration, Emma and the 2015 version of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, starring Carey Mulligan, when the house featured as Everdene Farm.