Wimborne Road (East), Ferndown - Old Nursery Wall

Image: © Martin Rowley Taken: 21 Mar 2012

At first sight this is a most uninteresting view. However, this simple, yet elegant wall, which is well over a century old, is all that is left of a once vast enterprise of importance not only in the history of Ferndown (now the largest non-coastal community in Dorset), but also of seminal importance to national horticulture. In 1859, the brothers William and David Stewart, the young heirs to a long-established Scottish plant nursery enterprise, decided to look to southern England for a milder base to extend their operations. They purchased a large expanse of land just south of West Moors (Dorset), north of the Wimborne to Ringwood road. The growing nursery helped encourage the development of Ferndown - indeed it was the Stewart brothers who decided to merge the original name (Fern Down). David Stewart built a large house on the site - Ferndown Hill House - and this wall surrounded that property. When the house was demolished (I believe in the 1970s) the wall and main gate to the property were retained.

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0