Walhampton

About Walhampton

Walhampton School Trust Ltd owns a very interesting large historic landscape garden with glorious walks and 3 lakes. It is situated just E of Lymington. The estate was recorded in Domesday, 1086, and, by the C17, there was a large farmhouse on the site of the present mansion. In the C18 successive owners built and extended a country mansion, and designed and established an English landscape garden with 3 lakes, a prospect mount, serpentine canal, and woodland drives, rides and walks. You can wander round the lakes, enjoy views to the Isle of Wight, and also find the unique mount, complete with spiral path to the top, in front of which is the serpentine canal. Most of these features have been restored (with help from the Hampshire Gardens Trust and the Wellworthy Angling Club) by David Hill of the school staff.

You see fully grown magnolias and rhododendrons, and other well known trees and shrubs.There is a beautiful Italian terrace and Roman arch, and an early C20 plantsman’s glade, all by Harold Peto (c1907). There is also an Edwardian terrace and an Italian colonnade each by Thomas Mawson (1914). Children and adults can enjoy all the features that include a shell grotto, made by the coxswain of an early C19 owner, Admiral Sir Harry Neale. It is said that the coxswain, finding no further purpose in life after he had finished the grotto, drowned himself in the Solent. In order to appreciate the garden more fully, it is recommended that you join one of the garden tours led by David Hill
.

David Hill will give a talk at the Mercury fountain, followed by a guided tour, every hour from 2.15pm to 5.15pm.