Over a period of more than thirty years Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort, devoted a substantial portion of her time and wealth to botanical pursuits on a grand scale. Indeed, by the turn of the eighteenth century, Mary had amassed one of the largest and most varied botanical collections in England. The collection was particularly renowned for the extensive range of exotic plants which included both a large array of local flora and specimens from as far away as southern Africa, Barbados, Canada, and Japan. Yet, the Badminton estate remained the primary site of Mary’s knowledge production throughout her life and this paper will explore the opportunities and challenges this locale created for Mary’s scientific endeavours. In particular, I will consider the extent to which the Badminton estate, Mary’s relationship to it, and social limitations on female botanizers impacted her capacity for botanizing and the outcomes of her pursuits. On the one hand, Mary’s status and wealth were central to her ability to establish the far reaching networks which in many ways transcended both the boundaries of Mary’s gender and her home in regard to knowledge and specimen acquisition. On the other hand, both the grounds and the people associated with the Badminton estate enabled Mary to receive, catalogue and coordinate, process and preserve the intellectual and physical material necessary for her work. Thus, this case of gentlewomanly botanical practice shows how both local and transcendent factors intermingled in the gendered production of botanical knowledge.