Westonbirt Arboretum
Westonbirt, the National Arboretum, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire is the finest collection of trees and shrubs in Britain, a 600-acre landscape of organised planting and natural woodland containing approximately 2,500 species and cultivars from across the world. The arboretum was founded in 1829 by Robert Stayner Holford, a wealthy landowner who devoted his life and a large part of his fortune to collecting and planting trees on his Westonbirt estate, creating over fifty years of intensive planting the framework of the landscape that visitors explore today. The oldest section of the arboretum, the Old Arboretum, preserves the Victorian planting philosophy of arranging trees in broad curving rides that create long views through the collection while allowing individual specimens sufficient space to develop their natural form. The mature trees in this section, now approaching 150 to 200 years old, have reached sizes that reveal the full grandeur of species that are often seen only as young trees in parks and gardens. The giant specimens of plane, maple, lime, tulip tree and oak create a canopy experience quite unlike anything available in most British gardens. Westonbirt is particularly celebrated for its autumn colour, which transforms the arboretum into one of the most spectacular seasonal landscapes in England from mid-October through November. The Japanese maple collection in Acer Glade and the wide range of North American hardwoods throughout the Old Arboretum produce a kaleidoscope of red, gold, orange and yellow that draws visitors in large numbers through the autumn season. Night-time illumination events in autumn extend the visiting hours and create a quite different atmosphere in the arboretum after dark. The Silk Wood section of the arboretum, a more naturalistic woodland managed for both tree collections and native wildlife, provides a contrasting experience of mature English woodland with added botanical interest throughout the year.