Rose Garden Project at Anglesey Abbey
- Published:
- 22 July 2024
- Last updated:
- 22 July 2024
The Rose Garden at Anglesey Abbey has been extended thanks to a generous donation by David Austin Roses
This year, the National Trust has extended the Rose Garden at Anglesey Abbey to create even more impressive displays for visitors.
Thanks to a generous donation by David Austin Roses, some 20 new rose beds and 180 new roses have been planted by the Anglesey Abbey gardening team on the south side of the Rose Garden.
With an additional 19 rose cultivars added to the collection this year, the Rose Garden now boasts a vibrant display of 60 rose varieties.
Liam Bedall, Senior Rose Consultant at David Austin Roses, says: “The extension to the well-loved rose garden at Anglesey Abbey is a really exciting development for National Trust members. We have carefully curated a donation of around 180 roses, which will be planted in individual variety beds to show off the unique character and charm of each English Rose.
“This new rose planting at Anglesey will give new, as well as seasoned visitors plenty of colour, flower, and fragrance to enjoy throughout the summer and we can’t wait for people to enjoy the hard work of the team for years to come.”
The existing Rose Garden is a popular part of the garden and was one of Lord Fairhaven’s first garden projects when he bought the estate in the 1920s.
The new rose beds mirror the existing size, shape and layout of the current rose beds which were created by Lord Fairhaven on the site of former greenhouses and vegetable borders.
Kevin Tookey, Head Gardener at Anglesey Abbey, says: “Each rose has been carefully chosen for their colour, vigor, abundance of flowers, as well as pest and disease resistance.
“We hope that the addition of these new beds will not only enhance visitor enjoyment, but also make the soil’s rhizosphere more species-rich and bio-diverse. When we planted the roses, we added compost and mulch to lock moisture into the soil and increase the bacterial and fungal biodiversity too.”
Soils are one of the UK’s largest carbon stores and play a vital role in climate mitigation. By ensuring that the new rose beds retain moisture over the summer months, more nutrients will be available in the soil and less carbon will be released.
In January 2024, test pits were dug by Oxford Archaeology to ensure that the new rose beds at Anglesey Abbey would not damage or disturb any archaeological features from the site’s original priory.
A wall was discovered during the dig, as well as some fragments of post-medieval tobacco pipes and pottery. The test pits were then filled in and the rose beds marked out, planting the roses away from the line of the wall.
Now the 60 rose beds are out in full bloom, ready for visitors to enjoy throughout the summer. While David Austin favourites such as ‘Bring me Sunshine’, ‘Queen of Sweden’ and ‘Emily Brontë’ are putting on a dazzling display in the Rose Garden, many of the roses are also available to buy in the Plant Centre at Anglesey Abbey in peat-free soil.
Why not take a trip to Anglesey Abbey’s newly extended Rose Garden this summer? And pick up a favourite from the Plant Centre to pop in the garden at home.
The roses at Anglesey Abbey usually flower from late June all the way through to early October, so there is plenty of time to enjoy them.
To plan a visit to the Rose Garden at the National Trust’s Anglesey Abbey, and to find out more about what was discovered during Oxford Archaeology’s dig, you can explore our website and follow us on social media.
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Archaeological dig project at Anglesey Abbey
Find out what was discovered when archaeologists from the National Trust and Oxford Archaeology carried out a dig to investigate the medieval history of Anglesey Abbey.