Last Updated on 31 October 2023 by Colette
This post features gifted experiences
Gilbert White was a pioneering English naturalist, ecologist and ornithologist. He is best known for his book: Natural History of Selborne. His house (in Selborne, Alton, Hampshire) is now a museum dedicated to his passions and explorations and his gardens a careful reconstruction of what they may have looked like based on his diary.
Although dogs are welcome in the gardens at Gilbert White’s, they are not allowed in house itself. Initially we had thought that would mean we wouldn’t be able to go in the house but Poppy was pretty tired after our adventures at Butser Ancient Farm so we were able to leave her in the car for a short while whilst we explored the house and then she came to join us in the gardens for a walk.
Now typically my kids aren’t really very big fans of museums and when we visit National Trust properties or places like Temple Newsam or Gilbert White’s we tend to not bother going inside and concentrate our adventures on the outside spaces but thanks to a scavenger hunt and plenty of interactive details (including costumes to try on, brass rubbings and jigsaws – Ben even found a snake hidden in a drawer!) they were quite happy to wander around the house for a bit.
Amy was given a choice of three scavenger hunts to do in Gilbert White’s house and chose one looking for patterns which gave her a much needed focus as we moved through each of the rooms. They layout of the house means you can follow a loop from room to room so that you don’t miss anything out which is always helpful and the leaflet we were given at the entrance gave a brief explanation of both the route to take and the purpose of each room.
Dave and I found the Frank Oates Gallery the most interesting – this was a section about arctic exploration telling the story of Frank Oates from his childhood in Leeds to his final African expedition.
Once we’d made our way through the house, Dave went and fetched Poppy from the car whilst the kids and I sat and enjoyed the autumn sunshine in the gardens for ten minutes.
Whilst we were waiting Amy and I sat and read through the “Garden Guide” explaining the different parts of the gardens first which helped us to understand the different areas a bit more as we were moving around. There are several signposted garden walks but we chose to just wander and discover the gardens for ourselves.
The Six Quarters is an area surrounded by high walls and hedges containing six large flowerbed – these are planted and maintained as a reconstruction of what Gilbert White’s garden may have looked like thanks to his detailed garden diary kept over the space of 42 years! I particularly loved all the handwritten extracts placed around the garden which were taken from Gilbert White’s diaries about the things he had noticed in the gardens at different times of year.
Ben’s favourite part of the gardens was the “Great Mead” and its wooden seat made from an old port barrel that was placed on top to allow Gilbert White to admire the landscape. We all said that if we had a garden big enough (and I’m talking lottery win sized), we’d love to install a Ha-ha (something we’d never heard of before our visit to Gilbert White’s!) and a mound with a seat.
Looking at the map of Gilbert Whites Garden now, we didn’t even cover half of it during the course of our visit so I know there’s plenty more we could have seen but of course we were short on time.
Autumn is such a glorious time to visit Gilbert White’s garden, the trees were laden with apples and pears, and many of the trees were just starting to turn into the gorgeous oranges and browns that we associated with this time of year. That said, I’d love to be able to visit in the spring or summer to see the gardens in full bloom!
Book tickets for Gilbert White’s House and Garden. It’s worth noting that if you are visiting the house or the cafe, parking is free and you just need to validate your parking in the house or cafe – we didn’t realise this and paid for our parking anyway!
You can read about what else we got up to in Hampshire here:
Watercress Line Heritage Railway
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