Wakehurst

West Sussex, United Kingdom — 8th March 2026 — By Robert Watts

Wakehurst is a house and botanic gardens owned by the National Trust, but operated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The mansion was originally built in 1590 and since then has had a litany of owners, however the gardens were rather bear until 1869 when the estate was bought by Caroline, Dowager Marchioness of Downshire, who made many alterations to the Mansion and landscape. This included planting giant redwoods, establishing a flower garden and the lake.

The Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew) use Wakhurst principally as a research centre. Since 2000 the UK seed bank has been housed at Wakhurst. Their aim is to collect seeds from all of the UK’s native flora and conserve seeds from 25% of the world’s flora.

A building with trees in front — The Millennium Seed Bank

The gardens are over 500 acres with plants from all over the world. This includes everything from walled and water garden through to woodland and wetland conservation areas. We were there the entire day but did not even scratch the surface of the gardens.

Red plants — We went in winter, so the winter garden was alive with colour from these dogwood plants.

A lake with a tree — There are some massive trees!

A stream with path that switches sides over a series of bridges — There are plenty of nice walks around the gardens, this one meanders along a stream.

A view looking down over a forest — In addition to flowers and shrubs there are trees from all over the world.