Exbury Gardens | |
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Location | New Forest |
Coordinates | 50°47′55″N 1°24′02″W / 50.7986°N 1.4005°W |
Created | 1919 |
Operated by | Exbury Gardens Limited |
Designation | Grade II* |
Exbury Gardens is a 200-acre (81 ha) informal woodland garden in Hampshire, England with large collections of rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias, and is often considered the finest garden of its type in the United Kingdom.[1] Exbury holds the national collection of Nyssa (Tupelo) and Oxydendrum under the National Plant Collection scheme run by the Plant Heritage charity.[2] The gardens are rated Grade II* on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[3]
Lionel Nathan de Rothschild purchased the Exbury estate in 1919 and soon began creating a garden on an ambitious scale, emulating his father's at Gunnersbury Park in London. Exbury House is a neoclassical mansion which was built around an earlier structure in the 1920s; whilst the gardens are open to the public, the house is not.[4]