Leonardslee

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Leonardslee House

One of the lakes

Leonardslee is a country house and famous landscaped garden near Lower Beeding in West Sussex, England.

The house stands on the western side of a steep sandstone valley, in which there are a series of seven man-made ponds, some of which once provided power for the wealden iron industry. Victorian plant collector Sir Edmund Loder purchased the estate from his parents-in-law in 1889^[1] and planted extensive collections of Rhododendrons and Azaleas and many species of trees. The garden is listed Grade 1 in the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens^[2]. An unusual feature, for England, is the colony of wallabies which have grazed the grass in the gardens for over a century. A rock garden near the house was built c.1890 by the famous Victorian landscaping company James Pulham and Son^[3], who also built a mound containing artificial caves for mouflon, now used for the wallabies. The gardens, which also have collections of dolls' houses and Victorian automobiles, and modern sculpture displays, attract some 50,000 visitors per year, but are currently for sale.

[edit] History

Leonardslee was purchased from the Aldridge estate in 1801 by the Beauclerk family, who made the first ornamental plantings^[4]. In 1852 they sold to the Hubbard family who built the present Italianate style house, designed by Thomas Donaldson, the first Professor of Architecture at University College, London, and completed in 1855. Edmund Loder from Flore, in Northamptonshire married Marion Hubbard in 1876 and bought the property from his parents-in-law in 1889. He planted a large amount of exotic flora in a short time and also introduced gazelle, beavers, kangaroos and wallabies. He had a rock mound with caves built by James Pulham to house mouflon, and these are now used as shelter by the wallabies. The Pulhams built the rock garden c.1890 using a mixture of of natural and artificial cretaceous sandstone. The rock garden is of moderate size and surrounded with conifers to provide shelter. Leonardslee has remained in the Loder family until the present, with present owner Robin Loder having made four new lakes and new plantings on the east side of the valley.