Historic Inspiration
Many of you who have visited the arboretum recently will have noticed that we have installed a new metal estate fence and gates along the main entrance drive into the arboretum, replacing the wooden fence and gates.
We have been restoring many of our original historic boundaries over the last few months, as part of the Westonbirt Project.
When the opportunity to replace the wooden fence arose we decided to replace the modern wooden fence with a traditional metal estate fence.
A metal estate fence is more in keeping with the Grade I Registered landscape and also requires less maintenance.
The new fence has been designed to match some of the traditional Holford estate fencing found on the Westonbirt estate, including parts of the arboretum.
The scrolls and monogram on the new gates reflect some of the detailing of the original Holford gates which are now outside the Forestry Commission office at Westonbirt.
The original monogram spells out ‘GLH’ for George Lindsay Holford who once owned the Arboretum and Westonbirt House.
We decided to maintain the idea of land ownership in the new monogram, which spells out ‘FC’ for Forestry Commission, along with '2012' to show the year in which the gates and fence were installed.
The new gates were created by local forge, GLC&R Williams, based nearby on the outskirts of Tetbury.
The new fence will connect to the new Welcome Building once in place. In the meantime we hope you enjoy what we feel is a more appropriate entrance into the arboretum.
Useful links
Work already completed as part of the Westonbirt Project: The story so far
