Silk Wood House

Thanks to our members, who continually support Westonbirt, we've successfully purchased Silk Wood House in partnership with Forestry England.

This property sits next to Westonbirt Arboretum which means for the first time in nearly 2 centuries the Arboretum has expanded.

‘As Friends of Westonbirt Arboretum we are delighted to support the purchase of Silk Wood House. This is an amazing opportunity to expand, protect and preserve the National Arboretum. As we work with Westonbirt to develop exciting plans for the future, we can now explore more options for enhancing its role, improving facilities and delivering an even better visitor experience.'
Mike Mintram - Friends of Westonbirt Arboretum Chairman

By adding these 29 acres to Westonbirt we've opened up many future opportunities to continue connecting people with trees. We don't have any detailed plans as yet, but we'll be sure to share them with you when we do. Look out for future updates in our monthly enews. Remember you'll need to opt in to receive our emails.

‘Everyone at Westonbirt Arboretum is extremely excited about this once in a lifetime opportunity, and there is no shortage of ideas as to how we will use Silk Wood House. Over the next two years we plan to take a detailed look at the current facilities and layout of both the existing arboretum and Silk Wood House. This way we can fully understand how best to use this opportunity so we can fulfil our mission to ‘connect people with trees,’ now and in the future.

We will continue to work closely with the relevant planning authorities on plans for the future of the property, and plan to speak to members, volunteers and staff about their aspirations for the arboretum, when deciding what to do. We are incredibly grateful to the Inger and Olle, the previous owners, for giving us the chance to purchase the house and to the Friends of Westonbirt Arboretum for supporting the purchase.’
Andrew Smith - Forestry England’s Westonbirt Arboretum Director

The last decade

Your support has grown and grown over the years helping to keep Westonbirt's collection of world class trees cared for, as well as improving onsite facilities including the Welcome Building, Wolfson Tree Management Centre, STIHL Treetop Walkway and Westonbirt Woodworks. Find out more about our past projects...

With your help Westonbirt has achieved so much and it just gets better year on year!

Interested to help even more? Take a look at our latest projects...