Garden enthusiasts invited to explore Mona Vale’s Edwardian style

15 September 2008

The history of the Mona Vale garden will be revisited tomorrow during a public tour (Tuesday 16 September). 

The walk is part of a series of monthly tours, usually held at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. 

Mona Vale Gardener Brian Mitchelmore will lead tomorrow's walk, setting off from outside the entrance to the rose garden at Mona Vale at 12.10pm.  It will finish at 1pm. 

Mr Mitchelmore will discuss the Edwardian style of garden Mona Vale is renowned for, a style that sees formal gardens surrounding structures, such as the Mona Vale bathhouse. 

Large trees, including oaks, cedars, monkey puzzles and sycamores, were also favoured during the early 1900s and remain a common feature of historic English gardens today. 

Among the trees were beds of agapanthus, dianthus, iris and winter rose, although the colours were never “gaudy,” Mr Mitchelmore says. 

His knowledge of Mona Vale is intimate and people who join the tour will learn much about the influence its early owners had on design of the garden, between the late 1800s and 1914. 

They included the Deans family, whose estate included Mona Vale; Alice Waymouth, the next owner; and then Annie Townend, who had the gatehouse, lodge, bathhouse, bridges and fernery built. 

A later owner, Tracy Gough, planted most of the large trees and had the lily pond dug by hand.

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