I’ve driven past the sign to Stourhead more times than I can count, and enough times that it makes it utterly shameful that I never took the turn and went in to see it. I always just carried on to Maiden Bradley (wholeheartedly recommend The Bradley Hare, run as it is by a manager poached from Soho House).

My bad. I should have gone years ago.

Indeed, the journey to this moment started months ago, when I researched the optimal day to go. I knew that I wanted to go at the perfect moment because one of the highlights of autumn has been hearing Alan Power, the then-head gardener (who could have left such a place?) talking so lyrically and beautifully about the colours on Radio 4. So I found out which week he was rung up by Eddie Mair, and I chose that week. I wanted the leaves to have changed colour, but not yet fallen. I wanted a landscape full of every hue of reds, browns, and yellows, and (unlike me) as little green as possible.

If you want to listen to one of these lovely descriptions and to watch a timelapse of the glorious trees, you can find one here.

The week was the first week of November, and the day I chose was the 7th. Of course, every year is unique its timings, every season a little early or a little late. This year, despite the storms moving more rapidly through the alphabet than I am entirely comfortable with, the change in the landscape has come late. The leaves, even the fruit, has been hanging on the trees here in Somerset. The grass is still growing. There are still raspberries in the kitchen garden, and the nights are depressingly damp, but not yet cold.

I am not usually a pessimist, but I confess to thinking I may have played this wrong. On the drive along the 303, I thought I was far too early, or maybe I would arrive and find that I was too late. All that time thinking and agonising was time utterly wasted, and I will never get it back. My wishing and hoping made no difference to the leaves, and I timed it absolutely right anyway.

I was prepared for the colour (just), but I was not prepared for the scale. The lake is deep and the beech trees are huge. There are curves in all planes, in the paths and in the ground beyond the water. There are curves that turn upwards at the edges of the garden, giving me the sensation that I had tumbled down into a shallow bowl made of gold, and I was being swirled around it.

The little pale spot is a grotto. I wasn’t expecting it, and was drawn in towards it, its inner being obscured. I followed the path, ducked under the entrance, and stumbled across a wedding. Quite the last thing I was expecting.

 The best gardens are those that balance structure and detail. The landscape is all structure, and it is done by someone with an eye for the absolute genius – all the more so because it was designed in the mid-18th century, and I truly have no idea how one creates planting designs with trees. I can’t even work out what we are having for lunch tomorrow.

The greens should be ranged together in large masses as the shades are in painting: to contrast the dark masses with light ones, and to relieve each dark mass itself with a little sprinkling of lighter greens here and there’ 

- Henry Hoare II

But gardens that rely on structure entirely to express their genus loci are impressive, but not delightful. Strong, but not breath-taking. They are more architecture than horticulture. The magic is so often in the detail. You know where this is going yes? The range of trees at Stourhead, witnessed in all their exquisite perfection as they turn to custard, or rust, or carmine, or lemon, are all about the detail. I have managed to bring my number of images down, but you must know that I took hundreds.

That very last picture? All I could think was ‘wreathes…’