Exbury Gardens
Exbury Gardens are found in the village of Exbury in Hampshire, just to the east of Beaulieu across the river from Bucklers Hard. It is a garden now opened to public enjoyment, created by a branch of the Rothschild family, originally for their adjoining house, Exbury House.
The garden is well signposted from Beaulieu and from the A326 Southampton to Fawley road, in the New Forest. The gardens are rated Grade II* on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[1]
History
Lionel Nathan de Rothschild purchased the Exbury estate in 1919 and soon set to creating a garden on an ambitious scale. The infrastructure included a water tower, three large concrete lined ponds, and 22 miles of underground piping. Exbury is now open to the public for most of the year, with high seasons in the spring for the flowering shrubs and the autumn for the autumn colour.
Exbury House itself is a neoclassical mansion which was built around an earlier structure in the 1920s. It is not open to the public.
The gardens
The gardens cove 200 acres; this is an informal woodland garden with very large collections of rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias, and is often considered the finest garden of its type in the United Kingdom. Exbury holds the national collection of Nyssa (Tupelo) and Oxydendrum under the NCCPG National Plant Collection scheme run by the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens.[2][3]
Other features include the Hydrangea Walk, the Rock Garden, Iris Garden, the Sundial Garden, Centenary Garden and Camellia Walk (which takes visitors to a path alongside Beaulieu river and back by way of the pond).
Administration
The gardens are run by a registered charity, Exbury Gardens Limited, whose objects are "to maintain, improve, develop and preserve Exbury Gardens in Hampshire, including opening them to the public, and to advance horticultural science, knowledge and learning for the public's benefit."[4]
Steam railway
In the north-east corner of the gardens is the Exbury Steam Railway, a ridable miniature railway with a 12¼ inch gauge which goes on a journey through a tunnel, around Dragonfly Pond, through the Summer Lane Garden, along the top of the rock gardens and into the American Garden. The railway was built in 2000–2001 as an additional attraction in the gardens. Two narrow gauge style 0-6-2 tender tank locos were built specially for the line by the Exmoor Steam Railway. The railway is a member of 'Britain's Great Little Railways'.
The railway however has proven to be more popular than anyone had anticipated, with trains often needing to be double-headed. To solve this problem, a much larger 2-6-2 tender loco, called Marriloo, was built at Exmoor, and entered service on the line in 2008. It is notable for having carried The Queen on a footplate trip round the railway. The railway stages popular Ghost Trains during the October half-term and Santa Steam Specials in the run-up to Christmas.
Location
- Location map: 50°47’55"N, 1°24’2"W
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Exbury Gardens) |
References
- ↑ National Heritage List 1000167: Exbury House (Register of Historic Parks and Gardens)
- ↑ NCCPG: Exbury - Oxydendrum
- ↑ NCCPG: Exbury - Nyssa
- ↑ Exbury Gardens Limited - Registered Charity no. 801349 at the Charity Commission