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This is the first part of the Winter Walk, created in 1996 to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the first Lord Fairhaven. Designed by the now retired Head Gardener, Richard Ayres and retired Gardens Advisor John Sales. The design was chosen from the many submitted mainly because it does not detract from the long Beech hedge that runs along the western edge of the East Lawn.
The area immediately outside the visitors' centre has been planted with 36 Wellingtonia trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum), destined to have a marked effect on the generally flat East Anglian skyline. In years to come, visitors to Anglesey Abbey will walk through the ticket office to a pathway surrounded by the russet coloured trunks of towering trees, with an under storey of Box and Laurels.
David Jordan - © National Trust
The Fairhaven Centenary Walk follows the eastern edge of East Lawn in a serpentine fashion, each twist and turn of the path giving a different outlook to the design. The planting within the walk is bold and effective, plants used for their coloured stems or bark, flowers, leaves and scents to create pools of colour and waves of perfume during the cold winter days.
At the centre of the walk is a circle of Elaeagnus ebbingei surrounding a statue of 'Boy with raised arms'. This is known as the Quiet Room, a seated area with plantings of ornamental grasses that whisper in any slight breeze, and a view through to a group of the 1st Lord Fairhaven's favourite trees Weeping Silver Limes (Tilia 'Petiolaris').
Along the western edge of the walk is a shelterbelt consisting of Box Elder (Acer negundo), Autumn Cherry (Prunus subhirtella Autumnalis 'Rosea'), Cornelian Cherry (Cornus mas) and Yew (Taxus baccata). In time the Yew will be 'topped' to enable the Prunus to be seen as clouds of pink flowers above the dark green foliage of the informal hedge.
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