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<p align="center"><a href="http://www.exbury.co.uk%20">Visit Exbury Gardens</a></p>
<p align="left">Welcome to Exbury Gardens and Steam Railway, in the New Forest
National Park...</p>
<p align="left"> We are a spectacular 200-acre woodland garden ,world-famous for
the Rothschild collection of rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias, rare trees
and plants, a riot of colour in spring, and a dazzling sight in the autumn.
</p>
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Visitors can enjoy exploring twenty miles of pathways, or “let the train
take the strain” on a 20 min journey, or take a buggy tour to see the
best of the colour.</p>
<p align="left"><br>
Mr Eddy’s Tearooms, the Gift Shop and Plant Centre will open between 10am
and 5pm on all Garden open days. <br>
</p>
<p align="left"><font color="#006600"><strong>The History Behind the Gardens</strong></font></p>
<p align="left">Lionel Nathan de Rothschild was the man whose inspiration created
Exbury Gardens. It was his vision, his dedication and his resources which have
created one of the finest woodland gardens in the country.</p>
<p align="left"> Lionel was born in 1882 into the famous banking family. By the
mid 19th century the Rothschilds were at the peak of their financial power and
prestige throughout Europe. As was expected of Lionel, he took up a career in
the family bank. In 1912 he married Marie-Louise Beer by whom he had four children,
Rosemary, Edmund, Naomi and Leopold.</p>
<p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Lionel described himself
as ‘a banker by hobby, a gardener by profession’ and it was his
love of flowers, particularly rhododendrons, which increasingly governed his
life. It was the era of plant hunters: explorers such as Frank Kingdon-Ward,
George Forrest, Joseph Rock, and Koichira Wada were bringing back seeds of hitherto
unseen plants from the remoter areas of the Himalayas and South East Asia. Undoubtedly
Lionel’s enthusiasm was fired by such men and their exploits.<br>
In 1919 he bought the Exbury Estate. At this time Exbury was an isolated hamlet.
William Mitford, whose family had owned the Estate in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, described it as an ‘earthly paradise’.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> It had a temperate
climate, moderate rainfall and an acidic soil ideal for growing rhododendrons.
Armies of men were employed to clear the woodland to enable the garden to be
laid out. Gradually the undergrowth of centuries was cut away and hundreds of
unwanted saplings uprooted. Paths were set out and the soil enriched and prepared
for Lionel’s new plantings.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> A series of concrete
lined ornamental ponds were built. Lionel was a perfectionist and nothing was
left to chance. A borehole was sunk and an irrigation system spread out from
his large red brick water tower to reach all parts of the garden through some
22 miles of underground piping; unique in its time, it is still used today and
proves invaluable in long dry summers. Some two acres of greenhouses were erected,
built with the finest specially imported teak. He stopped at nothing to create
the gardens he wanted. No expense was spared — if this garden were to
be re-created today it would cost many millions of pounds.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> The onset of war in
1939 brought the development to a standstill. In 1942 Lionel died; later that
year, with the family given only 48 hours to clear it, Exbury House was requisitioned
by the Royal Navy and commissioned as HMS Mastodon. As such she, (though she
was also called H.M.S. King Alfred and H.M.S. Hawke at different times, and
she, for all ships are traditionally called she), was responsible for the administration
of the victualling, arming and training of the crews of many of the types of
landing craft that were used in the amphibious assaults against occupied Europe.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> The author Neville
Shute was one of the many service personnel who passed through during the War;
he wrote about his experiences in his novel ‘Requiem For A Wren’.
In it one of his fictional heroines shoots down a German bomber. Even today,
mystery surrounds the true circumstances of the flight of the Junkers Ju 188
E-1 that was shot down over Exbury on the morning of 17th April 1944, crashing
on the Park in front of Exbury House. Its crew of seven did not survive the
crash.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> What is known is that
it flew over some of the preparations for the D-day invasion and, had it escaped
back to its base this massive build up of ships, material and the ‘Mulberry’
sections would have been reported directly to Hitler.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> From this the German
Intelligence services would, almost certainly, have deduced that Operation ‘Fortitude’,
the phoney plan created by the Allies to persuade the Nazis that the invasion
of France would be via the Pas de Calais, was in fact a deception. The outcome
of the invasion could then have been seriously jeopardised and the Allies driven
back into the sea. The history of Europe might well have been different had
this plane not been brought down when it was.<br>
<br>
During this time Lionel’s widow, ‘Mrs. Lionel’, and a skeleton
staff of four pensioners worked tirelessly to ensure that at least some of her
husband’s work survived until Edmund returned home after the war. He then
began the enormous task of restoring the gardens to their former glory.<br>
He continued his father’s work by cultivating new parts of the garden
and raising new Exbury hybrids. Edmund’s sons Nicholas and Lionel also
share in the family passion for gardening on a grand scale.<br>
</font></p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://www.exbury.co.uk/">Visit the web site here</a></p>
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