BNPS.co.uk (01202 558833)
Pic: Longleat/BNPS

Pictured: 'Long Leate’ by Leonard Knyff and Jan Kip in 1709.

Glimpses of a stately home's lost 17th century gardens have been revealed thanks to the UK's heatwave.

Thanks to fascinating new drone images, outlines of long-lost walls, pathways, fountains and parterres dating back to the 1600s have become visible as parch marks in the current extreme heat.

The 'ghost' garden at Longleat in Wiltshire shows up because the soil over the buried landscape features is shallower than its surrounding area.

This means during prolonged hot, dry weather the grass above the features becomes stressed and dies off, revealing the ghostly shadows of what remains below the surface.