Highdown Gardens

The botanist and horticulturalist Sir Frederick Stern established this spellbinding garden at a former chalk quarry in 1909. Embedded in downland with vistas of the Channel, the quarry had almost no soil and unfavourable planting conditions.

But Steyn toiled for 50 years to show that plants could flourish on chalk.

The species he introduced to Highdown are now a National Plant Collection of unusual trees and plants.

The gardens are at their best in spring and summer when snowdrops, anemones, daffodils, crocuses and then peonies and bearded irises all take turns to bloom.

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