The Orchard Tea Garden

Come with friends for a delicious, homemade afternoon tea!

Excellent scone with quality brand ingredients

A lovely garden area in which to enjoy a break with a toastie, cake or cuppa. Lots of seating outdoors though chairs can be wet of course if the weather is anything other than dry. Parking is limited to 2 hours for customers but make sure your reg number is entered into the system by the tills to avoid a penalty charge, though when we visited we were advised that the cameras were not operational that day, so check.

On revient avec plaisir dans ce lieu magique et chargé d histoire de Cambridge.

Visited with 5 friends on a sunny Sunday in mid-March. The ordering system is ridiculous and the high price of a small teapot and £4 for one scone with jam and cream is completely unjustified, especially on a student budget as we are and as many in Cambridge are. We did not order sandwiches or any proper lunch foods due to the high prices. If sitting outside, you have to go up and queue at a door to a table at the entrance to the dining room, and order at this table. There is no signage for this anywhere! When you get to this table to order, it is your first chance to look at a menu, so obviously that slows the ordering process a lot. We waited for at least 15 minutes to even order, as customers in front of us were indecisive: fine, but clearly indicative that two ordering stations and earlier access to menus would be an improvement. You then take a buzzer to your table to notify you when to come and collect your order. Two pots of tea, a scone and a slice of cake took 20 minutes to prepare. You have to take your tray back to the main building when you have finished. There were also no signs for toilets at all, and it was impossible to find a staff member to ask for their whereabouts. The Tea Garden was hosting what I assume was a large school trip at the time of our visit, and their queue to get into one of the smaller dining rooms was totally obstructing the narrow corridor leading to the loos that I eventually found. The large orchard/garden does have plenty of tables a nice distance from one another with deckchairs, most full as it was the weekend! Overall: very poor system for ordering, no real 'service', confusing signs if any, high prices and very limited parking options. But nice atmosphere in the orchard if it is a sunny day.