Exbury Garden in Autumn

The beauty and tranquillity of Exbury Gardens is legendary, with little breaking the silence apart from birdsong and sea breezes, but behind the unruffled facade lie tumultuous events. Ravaged by 1976’s great drought, when one third of the garden’s plants died, and devastated by the 1980s’ Great Storms which destroyed more than 500 trees, Exbury has survived, and even thrived. It has done so by dint of the passionate commitment of three generations of the de Rothschild family who still continue to develop the world famous collection of rare shrubs and trees. ‘Without first my father, who revived the gardens after the Second World War, and then my uncle who created a charitable trust to ensure its future funding, the gardens would not be here today,’ points out Nicholas de Rothschild.