The Larmer Tree Gardens near

Tollard Royal Tollard Royal is a village and civil parish on Cranborne Chase, Wiltshire, England. The parish is on Wiltshire's southern boundary with Dorset and the village is southeast of the Dorset town of Shaftesbury, on the B3081 road between Shaftesbur ...

in south

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

, England, were created by landowner

Augustus Pitt Rivers Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (14 April 18274 May 1900) was an English officer in the British Army, ethnologist, and archaeologist. He was noted for innovations in archaeological methodology, and in the museum display ...

in 1880 as

pleasure grounds In English gardening history, the pleasure ground or pleasure garden was the parts of a large garden designed for the use of the owners, as opposed to the kitchen garden and the wider park. It normally included flower gardens, typically directl ...

for "public enlightenment and entertainment". They were the first private gardens opened for public enjoyment in the United Kingdom, and were free to enter. The Grade II* listed gardens are within the Rushmore Estate in

Cranborne Chase Cranborne Chase () is an area of central southern England, straddling the counties Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. It is part of the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The area is dominated by, ...

, an ancient royal hunting ground and now an

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is one of 46 areas of countryside in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Since 2023, the areas in England an ...

Description

The gardens lie in the far south of Wiltshire, on the county border with Dorset, south of Tollard Royal village and about southwest of

Rushmore House Sandroyd School is an independent co-educational preparatory school for day and boarding pupils aged 2 to 13 in the south of Wiltshire, England. The school's main building is Rushmore House, a 19th-century country house which is surrounded by th ...

. They cover around . The main entrance is on the south side, where there is a two-storey lodge or caretaker's cottage, built in 1881. Apart from a central lawn the site is planted with mature trees, mostly conifers, oak, and yew, with laurel beneath, and is surrounded by further woodland on all sides except the south. Three

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

buildings dating from around 1880 surround the lawn: the Temple, in limestone ashlar, octagonal with a domed roof and pedimented doors; and two timber-framed ornamental Indian pavilions, brought here and re-erected. Originally there were six pavilions, provided as places where parties could hold picnics while being entertained from a central bandstand. In 1895 an open-air theatre with a semicircular

proscenium A proscenium (, ) is the virtual vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor itself, which serves as the frame ...

arch was added; called the Singing Theatre, it is also Grade II listed. Other buildings are the New Pavilion and the Jubilee Hall. The gardens are listed as Grade II* on the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

19th century

In 1880, Augustus Lane Fox inherited the Rushmore Estate, centred on Rushmore House (now part of

Sandroyd School Sandroyd School is an independent co-educational preparatory school for day and boarding pupils aged 2 to 13 in the south of Wiltshire, England. The school's main building is Rushmore House, a 19th-century country house which is surrounded by th ...

); a condition of the will was that he should change his name to Pitt Rivers. He started making the Larmer Tree Pleasure Grounds almost immediately, and they were opened to the public in 1885. The gardens are named after the Larmer Tree, a landmark tree on the ancient county boundary. The tree was possibly an ancient

Wych elm ''Ulmus glabra'', the wych elm or Scots elm, has the widest range of the European elm species, from Ireland eastwards to the Ural Mountains, and from the Arctic Circle south to the mountains of the Peloponnese and Sicily, where the species reac ...

(''Ulmus glabra'') under which King John (1167–1216) and his entourage were reputed to have met when they were out hunting. The original tree was still living as late as 1894, around which time it was replaced by an

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

, which was planted in the centre of the decayed rim. Pitt Rivers built several structures around the main lawn which were intended to educate and enlighten visitors to the garden. There was also a racecourse, an eighteen link golf course, a

bowling green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep ...

and lawn tennis courts. There were eight picnic areas, each enclosed by

cherry laurel ''Prunus'' subg. ''Padus'' is a subgenus of ''Prunus'', characterised by having racemose inflorescences. ''Padus'' was originally a distinct genus, but genetic and morphological studies have shown that ''Padus'' is polyphyletic. It has been propo ...

(''Prunus laurocerasus'') hedges and with

thatched Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge ('' Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

buildings in case of inclement weather. Pitt Rivers provided "crockery, knives and forks for picnickers, gratis", as well as "chairs, tables and dumb waiters" and accommodation for 20 horses.Desmond Hawkins ''The Grove Diaries: The Rise and Fall of an English Family, 1809–1925'' 1995 University of Delaware Press, 310-11 Music and entertainment was provided at the Singing Theatre, where plays were performed by workers from the estate, and poetry recitals given. A band was provided on Sunday afternoons during summer. Thousands of Vauxhall lights, hanging glass lamps lit by candles, illuminated the gardens in the evening, when there was open-air dancing. On the night that

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

danced with Pitt River's daughter Agnes in 1895, he described the gardens as "Quite the prettiest sight I ever saw in my life". By 1899 the gardens were attracting over 44,000 people a year, some of them making a day trip from the growing seaside resort of

Bournemouth Bournemouth ( ) is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area, in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. At the 2021 census, the built-up area had a population of 196,455, making it the largest ...

. A map of 1900 names the area as Larmer Park. After Pitt Rivers' death in that year the gardens closed, opening only occasionally after that time.

Thomas Hardy and the gardens

In early September 1895 Thomas Hardy and his wife Emma were staying with the Pitt Rivers at Rushmore. An annual

sports day Sports Day (British English & Canadian English), field days (American English), or play days (Canadian English) are events staged by many schools and offices in which people participate in competitive sporting activities, often with the aim of w ...

was held at the Larmer Tree Gardens on 4 September 1895, followed by a night-time dance. Hardy led off the

country dancing A country dance is any of a very large number of social dances of a type that originated in England in the British Isles; it is the repeated execution of a predefined sequence of figures, carefully designed to fit a fixed length of music, perfo ...

with Agnes Grove, Pitt Rivers' youngest daughter and the wife of Walter (later Sir Walter) Grove. Agnes later became a literary pupil of Hardy's, and after her death in 1926 Hardy wrote the poem ''Concerning Agnes'', reflecting on the night they first met. The first two stanzas read: :I am stopped from hoping what I have hoped before — ::Yes many a time! — :To dance with that fair woman yet once more ::As in the prime :Of August, when the wide-faced moon looked through ::The boughs at the faery lamps of the Larmer Avenue :I could not, though I should wish, have over again ::That old romance, :And sit apart in the shade as we sat then ::After the dance :The while I held her hand, and, to the booms ::Of contrabassos, feet still pulsed from the distant rooms.

Restoration

Restoration of the gardens started in 1991 under the direction of

Michael Pitt-Rivers Major Michael Augustus Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers (27 May 1917 – December 1999) was a British military officer and landowner who gained notoriety in Britain in the 1950s when he was put on trial charged with buggery. This trial was instrumental ...

. In the 90-odd years that the gardens had been closed, the cherry laurel had taken over almost all the gardens apart from the main lawn, and many of the buildings had decayed. The gardens were re-opened to the public in 1995. In 1999 a new Larmer Tree was planted to mark the new millennium.

Today

Many of the Victorian buildings, including the Nepalese Room, the Roman Temple and the Colonial-style pavilion which was originally the Tea Room, remain. The open-air theatre has a backdrop painted by the scenery department at the

Welsh National Opera Welsh National Opera (WNO) () is an opera company based in Cardiff, Wales. WNO gave its first performances in 1946. The company began as a mainly amateur body and transformed into an all-professional ensemble by 1973. In its early days, the ...

based on ''

The Funeral of Phocion ''The Funeral of Phocion'' is a 1648 Landscape art, landscape painting, also known as ''The Burial of Phocion'', ''Landscape with the Funeral of Phocion'' and ''Landscape with the Body of Phocion Carried out of Athens'', by the French artist Nico ...

'', a 1648 painting by

Nicolas Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was a French painter who was a leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythologic ...

which is in the

National Museum Cardiff National Museum Cardiff (), formerly known as the National Museum of Wales, is a museum and art gallery in Cardiff, Wales. The museum is part of the wider network of Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales. Entry is kept free by a grant from the Wel ...

. Wide cherry laurel-hedged rides radiate out from the lawn, leading to woodland beyond. There are displays of

camellia ''Camellia'' (pronounced or ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in tropical and subtropical areas in East Asia, eastern and South Asia, southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are ...

rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; : ''rhododendra'') is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the Ericaceae, heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are native to eastern Asia and the Himalayan ...

hydrangea ''Hydrangea'' ( or ) is a genus of more than 70 species of Flowering plant, flowering plants native plant, native to Asia and the Americas. Hydrangea is also used as the common name for the genus; some (particularly ''Hydrangea macrophylla, H. m ...

s and

eucryphia ''Eucryphia'' is a small genus of trees and large shrubs native to the south temperate regions of South America and coastal eastern Australia, mainly Tasmania. Sometimes placed in a family of their own, the Eucryphiaceae, they are placed by more ...

s among the other trees and shrubs.

Peacock Peafowl is a common name for two bird species of the genus '' Pavo'' and one species of the closely related genus '' Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae (the pheasants and their allies). Male peafowl are referred t ...

s and free-flying

macaws Macaws are a group of Neotropical parrot, New World parrots that are long-tailed and often colorful, in the Tribe (biology), tribe Arini (tribe), Arini. They are popular in aviculture or as companion parrots, although there are conservation con ...

, neither indigenous to the United Kingdom, roam the gardens. The woods contain one of the largest discrete areas of semi-natural broad-leaved woodland in southern England, which were managed and exploited for the

hazel Hazels are plants of the genus ''Corylus'' of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family, Betulaceae,Germplasmgobills Information Network''Corylus''Rushforth, K ...

underwood trades for many centuries, involving coppicing to produce strong, straight hazel wands. The gardens are privately owned and are open on a fee-paying basis from Easter to the end of September each year, but closed on Fridays and weekends as they are used for weddings and events. True to the spirit of Pitt Rivers, picnickers are encouraged at the gardens,

croquet Croquet ( or ) is a sport which involves hitting wooden, plastic, or composite balls with a mallet through hoops (often called Wicket, "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court. Variations In all forms of croquet, in ...

equipment and

deckchair A deckchair (or deck chair) is a folding chair, usually with a frame of treated wood or other material. The term now denotes a portable folding chair, with a single strip of fabric or vinyl forming the backrest and seat. It is meant for leis ...

s are provided at no charge, and free music is played on Sunday afternoons. The gardens have been grant-aided by English Heritage. Film director

Ken Russell Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell (3 July 1927 – 27 November 2011) was a British film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. His films were mainly liberal adaptations of ...

first visited the gardens as a child and used the gardens in a number of his projects over the years, including ''The Debussy Film'' (1965) and ''

The Music Lovers ''The Music Lovers'' is a 1971 British drama film directed by Ken Russell and starring Richard Chamberlain and Glenda Jackson. The screenplay by Melvyn Bragg, based on ''Beloved Friend'', a collection of personal correspondence edited by Cat ...

'' (1970).

Festivals, events and concerts

A music and arts festival, the

Larmer Tree Festival Larmer Tree Festival was a three-day music, comedy and arts festival held annually from 1990 until 2019 at the Larmer Tree Gardens, near Tollard Royal on the Wiltshire-Dorset border in England. The 2020 festival was cancelled as a result of ...

, was held at the gardens in July of every year since 1990; it was cancelled in 2020 during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

and has yet to return. Since 2006 another music festival, the End of the Road Festival, is held in late August or early September every year. ''The Enchanted Garden'', a music festival that was part of The Big Chill, took place from 1998 to 2002. Other events and concerts take place at the gardens throughout the summer. In 1999 ''Dining with Alice'', based on ''

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...

'' and produced by

Artichoke The artichoke (''Cynara cardunculus'' var. ''scolymus''),Rottenberg, A., and D. Zohary, 1996: "The wild ancestry of the cultivated artichoke." Genet. Res. Crop Evol. 43, 53–58. also known by the other names: French artichoke, globe artichoke, ...

, the company that went on to produce ''The Sultan's Elephant'' and ''La Princesse'', was performed at the gardens as part of the Salisbury International Arts Festival.

References

External links

*
Article on the gardens
– Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
BBC webpage about the gardensArticle in the Daily Telegraph about the gardensParks and Gardens UK database (maintained by the University of York) webpages about the Larmer Tree GardensRushmore Estate websiteThe theatre backdrop based on Nicolas Poussin's ''The Funeral of Phocion''
{{Coord, 50, 57, 6.82, N, 2, 4, 59.86, W, type:landmark_region:GB-WIL, display=title Pleasure gardens in England Gardens in Wiltshire