RHS Garden Wisley

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RHS Garden Wisley
Wisley Gardens laboratory 8 6 7-90.jpg
The laboratory at Wisley Garden with the canal in the foreground
Surrey UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location in Surrey
Type Garden
Location Wisley
Coordinates 51°18′47″N0°28′27″W / 51.3130°N 0.4742°W / 51.3130; -0.4742
Area240 acres (97 ha)
Created1878
Operated by Royal Horticultural Society
Visitors1,104,362 (2024) [1]
OpenAll year round
DesignationGrade II*
Website RHS Wisley

RHS Garden Wisley [2] is a garden run by the Royal Horticultural Society in Wisley, Surrey, southwest of London. It is one of five gardens run by the society, the others being Harlow Carr, Hyde Hall, Rosemoor, and Bridgewater (which opened on 18 May 2021). [3] Wisley is the second most visited paid entry garden in the United Kingdom after the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, with 1,104,362 visitors in 2024. [1] The gardens are Grade II* listed. [4]

Contents

Location

The gardens are accessed from Wisley Lane which connects to the A3 just south of Junction 10 on the M25 motorway. The River Wey forms the north-western border of the site. [4]

History

Wisley was founded by Victorian businessman and RHS member George Ferguson Wilson, [5] who purchased Glebe Farm, [6] a sixty-acre- (24 ha) site, in 1878. [2] There, with assistance from Gertrude Jekyll, [4] he established the "Oakwood Experimental Garden" [7] [8] on part of the site, where he attempted to "make difficult plants grow successfully". Wilson died in 1902 and Oakwood was purchased by Sir Thomas Hanbury, [9] the creator of the celebrated garden, La Mortola, on the Italian Riviera. He gave the Wisley site to the RHS in 1903. The society sold its lease on its gardens in Chiswick in March of that year and moved to Wisley in the April. [4]

The storms of 1987 and 1990 reduced the original wooded area, leaving only a few mature oak trees. [4]

In April 2005, Alan Titchmarsh cut the turf to mark the start of construction of the Bicentenary Glasshouse. [10] This major new feature covers three-quarters of an acre (0.30 ha) and overlooks a new lake built at the same time. It is divided into three main planting zones representing desert, tropical and temperate climates. It was budgeted at £7.7 million and opened on 26 June 2007. [11] A £20 million Welcome Building including a larger restaurant, cafe and visitor facilities was opened by Alan Titchmarsh on 10 June 2019. [12]

In 2024, the influential gardener Piet Oudolf redeveloped the two-acre space of his Glasshouse Landscape borders, first planned by him 20 years earlier, in a style more designed to mimic the natural world. [13] [14]

Directors have included; [15]

Description

Wisley is now a large and diverse garden covering 240 acres (97 ha). In addition to numerous formal and informal decorative gardens, several glasshouses and an extensive arboretum, it includes a trials field where new cultivars are assessed. The original laboratory, for both scientific research and training, was opened in 1907, but proved inadequate. It was expanded and its exterior was rebuilt during World War I. It was designated a Grade II Listed building in 1985. [16] Visitor numbers increased significantly from 5,250 in 1905, to 11,000 in 1908, 48,000 in the late 1920s, and 170,000 in 1957, and passed 400,000 in 1978, 500,000 in 1985, and 600,000 in 1987. [6]

The Wisley Millenium Glasshouse RHSGlasshouse.JPG
The Wisley Millenium Glasshouse

The grounds contain the following features: [17]

Visitor facilities include cafés and restaurant, car parks, plant centre, etc.


References

  1. 1 2 "ALVA - Association of Leading Visitor Attractions". www.alva.org.uk. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
  2. 1 2 RHS 2017.
  3. ↑ Royal Horticultural Society, Carol Klein opens RHS Garden Bridgewater, accessed 21 July 2021
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Historic England (1 June 1984). "Royal Horticutural Society's Gardens, Wisley (Grade II*) (1000126)". National Heritage List for England .
  5. ↑ RHS 2017, History of Wisley garden
  6. 1 2 Brent Elliott: The Royal Horticultural Society, A History 1804-2004. Published by Phillimore & Co. Ltd. ISBN   1-86077-272-2.
  7. ↑ Elliott, Brent. "'Experimental Gardening: Wisley in the Nineteenth Century' in Occasional Papers from the RHS Lindley Library, volume 11, January 2014" (PDF). Retrieved 26 April 2021.
  8. ↑ "RHS Garden Wisley (Surrey) © Open Garden at Gardens-Guide.com" . Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  9. ↑ "Hanbury, Sir Thomas (1832-1907) Knight, Shanghai merchant and botanist" . Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  10. ↑ First turf cut
  11. ↑ "Wisley Bicentennial Glass house opens for business". Landscape Juice. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  12. ↑ Morgan, Ben (7 June 2019). "Take a first look at RHS Garden Wisley's £20 million revamp". Evening Standard. Retrieved 12 June 2019.
  13. ↑ O'Carroll, Lisa (7 April 2024). "'It will blow people away': Dutch superstar gardener redesigns RHS flagship Wisley garden". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 April 2024.
  14. ↑ "Glasshouse Borders". RHS Garden Wisley. The Royal Horticultural Society. 2024. Retrieved 8 April 2024.
  15. ↑ Desmond 1994.
  16. ↑ Historic England (25 November 1985). "Royal Horticultural Society Offices, Wisley (Grade II) (1189118)". National Heritage List for England .
  17. ↑ Visitors' map
  18. ↑ "Explore our RHS Libraries in London and RHS Gardens".
  19. ↑ Elliott, Brent. "The British Rock Garden in the Twentieth Century in Occasional Papers from the RHS Lindley Library, volume 6, May 2011, pp 3-9" (PDF).
  20. ↑ "Greener Skills Garden". RHS. Retrieved 23 October 2025.

Bibliography

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