It's not every day you get to see inside some of NSW’s beautiful historic homesteads, and the town's top gardens, but for one weekend a year the public is invited to do just that.
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The Braidwood Open Gardens includes six spectacular gardens and the opportunity to see inside two grand homes that date back to the 1830s.
Visitors can take guided tours of Bedervale Homestead, a Georgian Colonial-style house designed by well-known Australian architect John Verge and built by emancipated convicts.
Historic Nithsdale homestead and its parklike gardens will also be open to the public.
The current owners have spent the past 25 years preserving and restoring its gardens and rambling homestead, filled with antiques and rare objects. Visitors will be able to wander the property's outbuildings, including the old bullocky driver's rooms, as well as the parklike gardens.
Many of the weekend's activities will be based in the grand gardens of Mona, whose 120 acres have been developed following the principles of English landscape designer Capability Brown and would not be out of place in popular period drama Downton Abbey.
A work in progress since 1837, Mona's award-winning gardens present postcard views in all directions and feature a picturesque lake, stone Palladian-style bridge, poplar walk and an elm wood underplanted with bluebells, daffodils and jonquils.
Over the weekend, the property will host talks by renowned landscape architect Michael Bligh and include a pop-up cafe and nursery.
Other highlights of the weekend included guided tours of the produce gardens at Wynlen House where owners Bronwyn Richards and Helen Lynch are following their passion of creating food with soul for the people of Braidwood and surrounds from their 1.5-acre village block.
At 14 Solus Street, the passion of owner Cheryl Raper has resulted in a vision of calm, tucked away behind her and husband Don's impressive pre-1900s home on the sweeping bend into Braidwood from Canberra. Out front, a towering English oak stands guard, a stately specimen that at 120 years old is listed on the Register of Australia's Biggest Trees.
And those up for a picturesque country drive shouldn't miss Tillararra, a two-acre oasis whose network of pathways promotes meandering and takes advantage of the property's incredible country views over grazing land and distant mountains.