Enter the garden and you step into one man's
vision of paradise. A timeless place of broad
vistas, secret nooks and secluded inlets. A
sanctuary for wildlife and rare trees and
flowers, where every woodland clearing reveals a
fresh pleasure. A world of tranquillity, where
the seasons are charted by the colours gently
rippling in the mirror of the lake and where the
calm is only disturbed by the song of falling
water or the whir of a startled wren seeking
cover.Shopkeeper,
botanist and philanthropist John Spedan Lewis
came to his water garden to work and reflect. And
now visitors from all over the world share in its
enchantment. Set in Longstock Park, it forms part
of the 3,750 acre Leckford Estate, owned and
managed by the John Lewis Partnership. The Estate
includes agricultural land, a fruit farm and
natural woodlands as well as a five mile stretch
of water meadow alongside the River Test.
The seven-acre
garden includes around two and a half acres of
lake, which is fed by the Test so that the water
remains very clear. It has earned a universal
reputation amongst horticulturists - the International Water
Lily Society has voted it "the finest
water garden in the world."
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Gardens at
dawn. |
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A water
lily. |
Water lily, an aquatic |
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