Wakehurst Place

Wakehurst Place mansion
Trees at Wakehurst Place Garden
Wakehurst Place in June

Wakehurst Place is a National Trust property located near Ardingly, West Sussex in the High Weald of southern England (grid reference TQ340315), comprising a late 16th-century country house and a mainly 20th-century garden, managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who also have a research facility there. Visitors are able to see the gardens, the historic house, and also visit the research centre.

For the National Trust's 2008–2009 fiscal year Wakehurst Place Garden was the Trust's most visited property for which admission was charged, with 439,627 visitors.[1] The garden today covers some 2 square kilometres (500 acres) and includes walled and water gardens, woodland and wetland conservation areas.

History

Wakehurst was bought in 1694 by Dennis Lyddell, comptroller of the Royal Navy treasurer’s accounts and briefly MP for Harwich. His son Richard Liddell, Chief Secretary for Ireland and MP for Bossiney, was obliged by financial pressure to pass the estate to his younger brother Charles.[2]

The house rated an illustration in Joseph Nash, The Mansions of England in the Olden Time (1839–49).

The gardens were largely created by Gerald Loder (later Lord Wakehurst) who purchased the estate in 1903 and spent 33 years developing the gardens.[3] He was succeeded by Sir Henry Price, under whose care the Loder plantings matured, Sir Henry left Wakehurst Place to the nation in 1963 and the Royal Botanic Gardens took up a lease from the National Trust in 1965.

National Collections

Wakehurst is home to the National Collections of Betula (birches), Hypericum, Nothofagus (Southern Hemisphere beeches) and Skimmia. The Great Storm of 1987 decimated Loder's plantings, toppling 20,000 trees.[4] Since then, Kew has redesigned the gardens to create a walk through the temperate woodlands of the world.

Millennium Seed Bank

The Wellcome Trust Millennium Building, which houses an international seed bank known as the Millennium Seed Bank (run by Kew, not the National Trust), was opened in 2000. The aim of the Millennium Seed Bank is to collect seeds from all of the UK's native flora and conserve seeds from 25% of the world's flora by 2020, in the hope that this will save species from extinction in the wild.[5]

Christmas tree

Wakehurst Place is home to the largest growing Christmas tree in England, a giant redwood. The tree stands 35m tall and is lit with around 1,800 lights from Advent until Twelfth Night.[6] The lightbulbs on the tree were changed in 2006 to energy-saving lightbulbs, so the tree is not as bright as before but uses less energy.

Much of Kenneth Branagh's 2006 film As You Like It, adapted from Shakespeare's play, was filmed on location at Wakehurst Place.

Nearby, also cared for by Kew, are Loder Valley Nature Reserve of woodland, meadowland and wetland habitats, and the Francis Rose Reserve, the first devoted to cryptogams (mosses, lichens and ferns).

In 1887, American architect Dudley Newton completed a replica of Wakehurst Place in Newport, Rhode Island for sportsman and politician James J. Van Alen from plans designed by Charles Eamer Kempe. Salve Regina University purchased the mansion from the Van Alen family in 1972.[7]

References

  1. ↑ National Trust: Annual Report
  2. ↑ "LIDDELL, Richard (?1694-1746), of Wakehurst Place, Suss.". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  3. ↑ "Wakehurst Place: The Culpeper Connection".
  4. ↑ Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Souvenir Guide, 4th ed. 2009:81.
  5. ↑ "Royal Botanical Gardens Kew: Millennium Seed Bank".
  6. ↑ "'Biggest Christmas tree' lit up". BBC News. 26 November 2004. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  7. ↑ Salve Regina University. "Campus Buildings: Wakehurst". Retrieved 6 July 2016.
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Coordinates: 51°04′02″N 0°05′20″W / 51.06720°N 0.08894°W / 51.06720; -0.08894

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