Windlesham Arboretum is between the villages of
Windlesham and
Lightwater in
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
,
United Kingdom. The
arboretum
An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...
features lakes, monuments, follies, a small chapel and approximately 22,000 mature and rare trees. The
Windle Brook
Windle may refer to:
Companies
* Windle (sidecar)
Places
* Windle, St Helens, Merseyside, England
People
* Bertram Windle (1858–1929), British scientist
* Bob Windle (born 1944), Australian swimmer
* Janice Woods Windle (born 1938), American a ...
runs through the arboretum and has seven main footbridges and approximately ten ponds on each side, some of which are more properly identifiable as lakes based on size. The land and lakes, including a scattered number of buildings altogether consist of just over .
Features
The arboretum, which is also a fresh water park, is located in the south of the
civil parish of Windlesham, where
alluvial soils
Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Allu ...
juxtapose, furthest from the brook, with acidic, naturally wet,
heath.
[Cranfield University National Soil Resources Institute]
/ref>
A small percentage of land use is for homes, one of which is a farm, within the bounds, which own small parts of the arboretum as their semi- woodland garden in the style of Gertrude Jekyll
Gertrude Jekyll ( ; 29 November 1843 – 8 December 1932) was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote ...
, who lived in Surrey for most of her life. One such home is that of Major William Spowers, who founded the Arboretum, and died there in 2009.
Ownership and rules
The arboretum is owned by a charitable trust. The objects of the charitable trust are to advance education in the study of trees and birds
Archaeology
An archeological survey of the Arboretum was carried out by the Surrey Heath Archaeological & Heritage Trust and found coins and pottery and signs of old Iron Age enclosure ditches and Romano-British agricultural buildings.
References
External links
Satellite image of Windlesham Arboretum
{{Surrey Heath
Arboreta in England
Protected areas of Surrey
Parks and open spaces in Surrey
Woodland gardens