Westonbirt Arboretum

The Garden

A huge country house with sprawling gardens was the height of fashion in the mid nineteenth century, a time when Robert Holford was bequeathed a fortune of £1,000,000 and the Westonbirt Estate. He invested £250,000 into his home at Holford, making it one of the top ten most expensive Victorian houses. His plans were so extensive that he moved the village of Westonbirt and even redirected the roads around to fit in with his design.

Holford decided to develop his own gardens with the planting of an Arboretum in the open farmland near his manor. Heavily inspired by the work of landscape gardener William S. Gilpin, he created a new wooded landscape. Arboretums are usually created for scientific or cultivation reasons, but Holford’s plantings were designed primarily for a dramatic effect. His vision of garden design was on a totally different scale from anybody else: lawns and herbaceous borders were replaced with tree-lined glades and formal flowerbeds became forests of rhododendrons and azaleas. Holford identified the value of the sandy, acrid soil in his land and planted rhododendrons, camellia, witch hazel, stewartia and other plants under a canopy of oak and Scot’s Pine.

He built rides and avenues through his new woods, through which he would take his family or visitors in carriages or on horseback. Modern visitors use these routes today; by 1855 much of the Old Arboretum existed as it does today including Main Drive, Specimen Avenue, Holford Ride, Morley Ride and Jackson Avenue.

Sir George Holford, Robert Holford son, continued to expand the Arboretum until his death in the early twentieth century. In the Old Arboretum he planted the Acer Glade, which is now famous for its glorious displays of yellows, reds and golds in autumn. To the west he expanded into the ancient Silk Wood. At the heart of Silk Wood lies a 2,000-year-old Lime Coppice and around it he added even more glades, specimen trees and avenues. He created broad Willesley Drive, Broad Drive and Waste Drive, dotting ornamental bays of trees along each to explore. He is most noted for planting what has now become the National Japanese Maple collection, an autumnal show on par with the renowned Acer Glade. Silk Wood, much older in origin than the Old Arboretum, is a habitat full of colourful wild flowers and a variety of woodland creatures.

Robert Holford was a supporter of explorers who travelled the world looking for rare and new plants and Westonbirt is home to a variety of specimens collected from the far corners of the globe, including a Monterey Pine grown from the original seeds brought back by David Douglas and a fine example of pocket handkerchief (or dove tree) brought from China by Ernest Wilson.

Sir George died in 1926 and left the estate to his nephew, the 4th Earl of Morley who sold the manor, which became a girl’s school. After his death in 1937, the estate passed to his brother, who passed the remaining 600-acre (240 hectare) lands to the Forestry Commission in 1956. The Forestry Commission aimed to make the arboretum safe and open for the public to enjoy for the first time in its history. They also aimed to catalogue and label the entire collection and develop the diversity of the woodland. Today Westonbirt is a home to 3,700 varieties of trees (18,500 in total), 900 species of fungi and 245 species of herbaceous flowering plant, almost all labelled for the plant lover.

The extensive tree collection means that every season provides different treats. In early spring the celandines, primroses and wood anemones all blossom before making way for the bluebells in May. Summer is the time to see rhododendrons, magnolia and azaleas in bloom although many believe the best sights are found in the Acer glade and Japanese Maples in autumn. In winter, the conifers and evergreens keep the arboretum green and alive, and the walks and avenues are illuminated at night, proving an enchanting and romantic atmosphere. This site is a truly national treasure and a visit in the autumn months will provide a stunning visual display of colour.