Fairhaven Woodland and Water Garden
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Fairhaven Woodland and Water Garden, a registered charity (no.265686), comprises 131 acres of ancient Woodland and Water Garden and includes South Walsham inner Broad. Within the garden is an ancient fishpond (King Stephens fishpond - listed in the Domesday book), a 950 year old oak, over 95 recorded species of birds, a private broad, many species of wild and cultivated plants the most spectacular being the stunning Candelabra primulas – around 50,000 flower during the last two weeks in May and the first two weeks in June.
A network of dykes (drainage channels) criss-cross the garden and all are cleared painstaking by hand each Winter using a traditional tool called a chrome. Other traditional practices used within the garden are coppicing and leaf harvesting to create a natural fertiliser. The garden is 100% organically managed, the resulting wildlife being a testament to this practice – the late 90’s saw the return of Otters to the Garden and broad.
Until the 80’s the garden was mainly dense wooded areas, but Dutch Elm disease and the 1987 gale saw 1000 fall. The areas that lost a large number of trees (several of them large Oaks) became open glade areas suitable for more cultivated plants that required more sun than the woodland plants. Plants such as Gunnera manicata, hydrangeas, philadelphus, cornus and daffodils were planted to give the garden year round interest creating a garden for all seasons.
[edit] The History of the Garden
Fairhaven Woodland and Water Garden was created by the 2nd Lord Fairhaven, Henry Rogers Broughton, and left in trust upon his death in 1973. Henry Broughton purchased the 350 acre (141.6 hectare) South Walsham Estate in 1946 which had been used by the military during the 2nd World War. Restoration of the house and the formal gardens required immediate attention so work upon the woodland and water garden did not begin until the following year when he moved to South Walsham Hall from Surrey where he had already developed a beautiful garden at Bakenham House, Englefield Green. Inspiration for the woodland and water garden came from his friend Sir Eric Savill, the creator of the Valley and Savill Gardens in Windsor Great Park.
The 2nd Lord Fairhaven was a very active and enthusiastic gardener, and designed the Woodland and Water Garden himself. He had a tram of seven gardeners and two woodmen to assist him, who worked in the greenhouses, formal garden, vegetable garden and the woodland garden. The woods, untended in the 2nd World War, had become a jungle. Lord Fairhaven gradually cleared what is now the main garden, introducing shade and water loving plants including candelabra primulas by the thousand, yellow flowering lysichiton americanus (skunk cabbage), camellias and rhododendrons specially imported from the Himalayas. Over 90% of the new plants for the garden were grown from seed in the greenhouses and brought on in the formal garden before being planted out in the woodland. Trees were grown in the nursery to 6ft, and were carefully transferred to the woodland garden. It took 15 years to complete the development of the garden.
