Overview

This is a very special place. The staff deliver 5 star customer service, everything possible has been done to assist anyone who needs extra help. There is transport from the car park, transport to the museum & Roman Villa. There are spotless accessible loos in key locations. A lot of thought & money has been put into The Newt. The staff are all passionate about giving ALL their guests the best possible experience. Please note, The Newt do not sell day tickets, you can't just arrive on the day, pay & go in. You need to have Newt membership, be a guest of a member, RHS members can visit on certain days & I think they also open for charity sometimes.

Transport & Parking

There is ample disabled parking, some of which is on concrete so good for people who use wheels. We arrived by car & had pre booked a buggy to take the 3 of us & a manual wheelchair (the kind that folds) from the car park to The Threshing Barn(reception), Steve arrived exactly on time & was so friendly & kind. I was able to check us in without the person who has a disability having to get off the buggy.

Access

Once we had been to The Threshing Barn, Steve took us to the Museum where the replica Roman Villa is situated. The route took us through several deer enclosures & past an area where there are free range red squirrels. He told us about the estate, history & animals, it was a great introduction to our visit. The estate covers quite a large area, so having the buggy to the Roman Villa was a massive help. There are different surfaces, concrete, grass, gravel, stone sets(which are a bit bumpy for wheelchair users) & some steps, but we were able to take routes that avoided steps & difficult surfaces. It is a historic estate & garden, so some things can not be changed, but where new structures have been built, they are easily accessible & every set of loos has an accessible loo as well. There is lots of seating with the exception of the walking route to the museum & Roman Villa & the the walking route to the Four Seasons Garden. There is a paper map & one online too. There are plenty of staff & all of them are happy to help.

Toilets

The accessible loos that I saw were huge, had room for wheelchairs of all sizes & a carer. There were grab rails & all were spotlessly clean. I'm not sure if there was a Changing Places loo.

Staff

Everyone we met was friendly, kind, helpful & determined to deliver first class customer service. We met so many wonderful people & I'm sorry I can't remember all their names. Steve was our buggy driver & he was just brilliant. The staff appear to have been hand picked & trained to to deliver five star customer service to everyone. At one time the wheelchair user in our group chose to wait by the Japanese Garden while the others walked to the Bee exhibit & they were asked by passing members of staff if they were ok, if they needed anything.