Elizabethan Gardens – The Outer Banks
Written By: Gail Clifford | Published By: Weekend Notes | June 12, 2022
https://www.weekendnotes.com/elizabethan-gardens-the-outer-banks/
If you love gardens or open spaces in nature, you’ll treasure your visit to these Elizabethan Gardens on Roanoke Island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Take a stroll with me through the gardens crafted to honor the historic Roanoke Island colonists. These gardens were inspired in 1950 by four civic-minded souls visiting the Fort Raleigh National Historic site and the Lost Colony Outdoor Drama. From that fortuitous meeting came the idea to have the Garden Club of North Carolina sponsor a two-acre garden on this 10-acre tract adjoining Fort Riley. Their plan to memorialize Sir Walter Raleigh and answer this question: “If the lost colonist were to have been successful here what kind of garden would they have created?” brought these imaginative concepts to fruition.
Important dates kept very much front of mind for the garden include the initial construction commencing on June 2, 1953, the day Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. Then, the formal opening day occurred on August 18, 1960, Virginia Dare’s 373rd birthday. More about her shortly.
We benefit now from their ideas to highlight the garden with flowering blossoms across the seasons including wintertime camellias, spring bulbs, summer crepe myrtles, and autumn salvia and ornamental grasses. Anything that adds color and life with the beautiful bay as a backdrop.
In addition, if you’re willing to spend the time listening to the commentary as you progress through the garden, you’ll learn history and explore extra nooks and crannies you wouldn’t know to search for as evidenced here:
“The gatehouse was made from warm-colored handmade bricks from the Silas Lucas kiln in Wilson, NC, that were baked before the turn of the century. The architecture is taken from a 16th-century orangery with a flagstone floor, hand-hewn beams, and a wide door featuring a cross design. Above the outside entrance is a sculptural stone coat of arms of Queen Elizabeth the 1st. Orangeries were built to winter this exotic fruit. Oranges were introduced from China through the overland trade routes developed in the 14th and 15th centuries. They gradually made their way from the near east to southern Europe, into France and England. The first orangery was built by Henry II of France but, naturally, Henry the eighth of England had to have one, too. Orange trees were placed in huge tubs and brought into the orangeries for the winter to protect them from frost.“
Transcribed from the audio tour
I do enjoy the ability to learn as I go and be able to search for a specific item, such as the detail found on the sculptures of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in America who disappeared with the Lost Colony despite her grandfather’s efforts to find his daughter and her family. It’s also true of the Lion Couchant Birdbath.
But it needn’t be “overly” educational if you will when you have children or people with a variety of interests with you. Pick and choose how to spend your time.
Enter the gardens from the gatehouse, enjoy the bursts of color, hear the burble of the white Carrera marble pineapple fountain welcoming your visit, smell the rosemary and basil, and feel transported back to Elizabethan times. Eschew technology and allow yourself to wander at will. There are plenty of markers to identify plants for you, whether in Shakespeare’s herb garden, the perennial garden, or the seasonal flower beds.
A fan of impressive entrances, this garden contains one of the best with handmade bricks laid to hold 15-feet-tall iron gates I learned once hung at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C. When I was a teen, I’d have to run errands up and down “Embassy Row” so felt a connection to the gates.
Take the leisurely stroll along President’s Walk, named for former presidents of the Garden Club of North Carolina, and reach the larger-than-life statue of Queen Elizabeth I which is, importantly, the largest such statue in the world honoring Queen Elizabeth I. In a then-meets-now experience, Queen Elizabeth’s dress (don’t worry, you can touch it!) was based on a design by Joan Brumback, a Roanoke Island costume designer who contributes to the local theater group that performs here. If you remember your history, you’ll realize that single rose in Queen Elizabeth’s hand symbolizes the House of Tudor. She was the last reigning monarch of that Dynasty.
Gail Clifford
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