Wakehurst Place Garden is a
gardenA garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form is known as a residential garden. Western gardens are almost universally...
located at Wakehurst Place in
ArdinglyArdingly is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex district of West Sussex, England. It lies south of London, north of Brighton, and east northeast of the county town of Chichester on the B2028 road, The parish covers an area of 1609.08 hectares . In the 2001 census 1833 people lived...
,
West SussexWest Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
in southern
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It includes walled and water gardens, woodland and wetland conservation areas. It belongs to the
National TrustThe National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
and is managed by the
Royal Botanic Gardens, KewThe Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to simply as Kew Gardens, are 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. The director is Professor Stephen D. Hopper, who succeeded Professor Sir Peter Crane...
. For the National Trust's 2007–2008 fiscal year Wakehurst Place Garden was the Trust's most visited property for which admission was charged, with over 477,000 visitors.
The garden was largely created by Gerald Loder (later Lord Wakehurst) who purchased the estate in 1903 and spent 33 years developing the gardens, which today cover some 2 square kilometres (500 acres).
Wakehurst Place Garden is a
gardenA garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form is known as a residential garden. Western gardens are almost universally...
located at Wakehurst Place in
ArdinglyArdingly is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex district of West Sussex, England. It lies south of London, north of Brighton, and east northeast of the county town of Chichester on the B2028 road, The parish covers an area of 1609.08 hectares . In the 2001 census 1833 people lived...
,
West SussexWest Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
in southern
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It includes walled and water gardens, woodland and wetland conservation areas. It belongs to the
National TrustThe National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
and is managed by the
Royal Botanic Gardens, KewThe Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to simply as Kew Gardens, are 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. The director is Professor Stephen D. Hopper, who succeeded Professor Sir Peter Crane...
. For the National Trust's 2007–2008 fiscal year Wakehurst Place Garden was the Trust's most visited property for which admission was charged, with over 477,000 visitors.
The garden was largely created by Gerald Loder (later Lord Wakehurst) who purchased the estate in 1903 and spent 33 years developing the gardens, which today cover some 2 square kilometres (500 acres). He was succeeded by
Sir Henry Price Sir Henry PriceIn 1919 Henry Price opened a tailors shop in Silsden, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, now in the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire....
, and the Royal Botanic Gardens took over in 1965. Wakehurst is home to the National Collections of betulas,
hypericumHypericum is a genus of about 400 species of flowering plants in the family Clusiaceae, subfamily Hypericoideae ....
s,
nothofagusNothofagus, also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of about 35 species of trees and shrubs native to the temperate oceanic to tropical Southern Hemisphere in southern South America and Australasia...
and
skimmiaSkimmia is a genus of four species of evergreen shrubs and small trees in the Rue family, Rutaceae, all native to warm temperate regions of Asia. The leaves are clustered at the ends of the shoots, simple, lanceolate, 6-21 cm long and 2-5 cm broad, with a smooth margin. The flowers are in...
s. The
Wellcome TrustThe Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 as an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. With an endowment of around £13 billion, it is the United Kingdom's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research...
Millennium Building, which houses an international
seed bankSeed bank may refer to:*Seedbank, a repository of preserved seeds*The store of viable plant seed in an ecosystem; for example:** Soil seed bank, the viable seed present in the soil;...
known as the
Millennium Seed Bank ProjectThe Millennium Seed Bank Project is an international conservation project coordinated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Launched in the year 2000 and housed in the Wellcome Trust Millennium Building situated in the grounds of Wakehurst Place West Sussex, its purpose is to provide an "insurance...
(not National Trust), opened in 2000. The aim of the Millennium Seed Bank is to conserve seeds from 10% of the world's flora by 2009, in the hope that this will save species from
extinctionIn biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or group of taxa. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species...
in the wild.
Wakehurst Place is home to the largest growing
Christmas treeThe Christmas tree is a decorated artificial or living tree, a popular tradition associated with the celebration of Christmas. Normally an evergreen coniferous tree that is brought into a home or used in the open, a Christmas tree is decorated with Christmas lights and colourful ornaments during...
in England. The tree stands at 35 m tall and is lit with around 1,800 lights from
AdventAdvent is a season of the Christian church, the period of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus; in other words, the period immediately before Christmas. It is the beginning of the Western liturgical year and commences on Advent Sunday. The Eastern churches...
until
Twelfth NightTwelfth Night or Epiphany Eve is a festival in some branches of Christianity marking the coming of the Epiphany, and concluding the Twelve Days of Christmas...
. The lightbulbs on the tree were changed in 2006/2007 to energy-saving lightbulbs so the tree is not as bright as before but saves lots of energy.
Much of
Kenneth BranaghKenneth Charles Branagh is a Northern Irish actor and film director.- Early life :Branagh, the second of three children, was born and brought up in Belfast to working class Protestant parents Frances and William Branagh, a plumber and joiner who ran a company that specialised in fitting...
's 2006 film
As You Like ItAs You Like It is a film released in 2006, directed by Kenneth Branagh. It is based on the play As You Like It by William Shakespeare. The film's setting is inspired by 19th Century Japan. It was shot on location near London and at Shepperton Film Studios...
, adapted from Shakespeare's play, was filmed on location at Wakehurst Place.
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