{"id":2158236,"date":"2025-11-15T07:57:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T07:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2158236"},"modified":"2025-11-15T07:57:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T07:57:27","slug":"a-royal-success-the-kings-gardens-at-sandringham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/a-royal-success-the-kings-gardens-at-sandringham\/","title":{"rendered":"A royal success: The King’s gardens at Sandringham"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Most gardens have their ups and downs, even royal ones. The gardens at Sandringham in Norfolk reached their peak at the beginning of the 20th century, when Edward VII laid them out on an imperial scale and employed some 100 gardeners. Fifty years later, they hit their nadir, when the walled kitchen gardens and most of the formal gardens around the house were abandoned. Their recent resurrection by The King is little short of miraculous.<\/p>\n
The kitchen gardens remain unmanicured, used as grazing for foals from the Royal Stud, but Sandringham\u2019s 60 acres of pleasure gardens, surrounded by woods and parkland, are once again a showcase of the finest designs, expressed through an exceptional palette of plants. All this is the fruit of The King\u2019s determination not only to give the great house a setting appropriate to its architecture and history \u2014 in the 1960s, there had even been plans to demolish the whole building \u2014 but also to plant a beautiful garden that visitors can enjoy and be inspired by.<\/p>\n\n
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The Topiary Garden, with the Moorish-inspired Maze at its centre. Created in 2023, it showcases the finest topiary work and is filled with symbolism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption>
The King, then Prince of Wales, took over the running of the 21,000-acre Sandringham estate in 2017, converting its agriculture to organic procedures and adopting the principles of integrated agroforestry, enhancing soil health, improving biodiversity, sequestering carbon and providing shelter from extreme weather. He realised many years ago that the gardens would need restoration, renewal and replanting, but it wasn\u2019t until towards the end of 2022 \u2014 when the groundwork was in place \u2014 that he was finally able to turn his attention to these 60 acres of rich, free-draining, sandy soil.<\/p>\n
We are fortunate to have a monarch who is passionate about good design, plants, conservation and public access; he has memorably shown us how to combine these interests at Highgrove, Gloucestershire. Yet Highgrove is a personal creation, a place where The King has learnt and practised his ideas about gardens and gardening since 1980. Sandringham is quite different. The site was acquired for the future Edward VII in 1862 and the estate was developed over the next 40 years. It reflects a time when the British Empire was at its most extensive and wealthy. Sandringham House, once considered \u2018the most comfortable in England\u2019, is too large for today\u2019s Royal Family and its principal value lies in its historic importance and its potential for public benefit. It offers much for visitors to learn, admire and enjoy.<\/p>\n\n
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The garden recalls the topiary yews planted by Edward VII\u2019s consort Queen Alexandra in the Dairy Cottage garden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption>
On the western side of the house, the land drops down towards the upper lake, bordered on one side by a fine rock garden constructed of Pulhamite stone, which The King has had restored, extended and replanted. It draws in visitors to explore its stonework, rare alpine plants and views across the lake. However, The King also knew that there had once been elaborate formal parterres just below the western terrace, the removal of which had left the architecture of the house without a proper grounding \u2014 there was nothing but grass (duly Dug for Victory in the Second World War) to connect its impressive fa\u00e7ade to the ornamental trees on the far side. The King decided to rebuild those formal gardens in the modern idiom, giving rise to the Topiary Garden (in 2023), the Maze (2024) and the Sundial Garden (2025). The scale, the speed and the importance of what he has already achieved cannot be overemphasised.<\/p>\n
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