“There is more to drive a steam train over the Exbury gardens than to climb on the footplate and” Off We Puff “, says Marie-Louise Agius carefree, if not a bit disbelief on the assumption that it is easy. “You have to feel, hear, feel, anticipate and react. Every time you drive, there is a different number of people on the train, a different weight, it can be dry, it can be wet, the fire is a different temperature … There are so many variables,” she says.
The locomotive in question runs along the narrow-gauge railway of the estate, which flows off the Victorian Station Exbury Central and travels through a tunnel over a bridge, around the Libelle pond and through the summer-savvy garden to offer a unique perspective on the more than 200 ackre hectare garden, which attracts 125,000 visitors for a year.
As an occasional “Joyrider”, Agius always has one of the full -time drivers next to her in a taxi. Her uncle Lionel de Rothschild prefers to stay a passenger. “I'm not mechanically minded,” he says. The train was introduced in 2001 by de Rothschilds Uncle Leopold de Rothschild, who also loved to take the train. De Rothschild remembers a particularly wet day in 2004 when he Leopold and his buddy Queen Elizabeth II. Both worried in waterproof: “They went out of giggling to play trains”.
The Exbury Gardens was called in 1919 by de Rothschild's grandfather, also Lionel-a prominent member of the banking dynasty, parliamentarian and garden books, which cultivated a world-famous collection of rhododendrons, Azalas, camelios and magnolias as well as other shrubs and treesas and treesas over the course of 20 years. After his death, De Rothschild's father Edmund and Uncle Leopold took over the property.
When both de Rothschild and Agius grew up in Exbury, you enjoyed what was a massive playground for you, but was also expected – regardless of your age – to help. “Grandpa earlier – they would pick up the listener and he would not even say hello. He only said:” Meet me at 10 “, and Boomf, the phone would drop,” she recalls. “He would be armed there with incredibly dangerous devices, and my younger sister Lara and I would be sent up to chop off trees.
De Rothschild also enjoyed snippets and dead wood, but was “not so wild” and preferred to keep his feet on the floor. Today the gardens are a non -profit trust, which is led by an board of directors under the direction of Agius' father Marcus Agius, the former group chairman of Barclays. Her mother, Kate de Rothschild, Lionel's sister, is on the board.
De Rothschild and Agius' passion for plants have developed in very different ways. The now 69 -year -old de Rothschild was initially forced to follow the family tradition after Cambridge, and spent 10 unfortunate years as a banker before he found the courage to leave the job. “I wasn't good at it and didn't enjoy it,” he says of the experience. “My cousin warned me: 'You will be bored with tears because you will only move money from where it didn't want to.' He was right. The Rothschild gardens. His passion has ignited, since then he has written his own book on this topic, The eighth miracle of the world: Exbury Gardens and the Rothschildswhich was published in 2021.
Agius' conversion was faster. After graduating from Edinburgh University with an MA in sociology, she released the banking business and instead found “happiest in the gardens”. When her cousin mentioned a landscape design course at the KLC School of Design in London, she found her way. “I thought it would give me another year of the postponement, but I immediately fell in love with landscape design,” she says. “It is so diverse. No day or no website, customer or letter is the same. It's like an orchestra, you are the one with the overall view.” At the age of 47, she is now a senior director at Balston Agius Landscape and Garden Design Practice, member of the Rhs Woody Expert Group – a resource for specialist knowledge for robust trees and shrubs – and a RHS judge.
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Planting in Exbury has been expanded over time to ensure interest all year round. More than 1,000 hybrids of rhododendrons have been planted over the three generations, hundreds of thousands of onions, a national plant collection of Nyssa trees and a collection of 7,000 were raised, and a collection of 7,000 Nerine sarniensis (Guernsey Lily) Care and contains 700 named varieties in sparkling red, oranges, white, purple and pink. Future projects include the introduction of climate-resistant species in a copy of championship trees.
The gardens are a family problem, but de Rothschild and Agius have an affinity in their joint gardening and passion for their inheritance. They do a good team exactly because their temperaments are polar opposites. “Lionel is very gentle, I adore him,” says Agius. “He is a figurehead for the gardens. He has knowledge and can speak very well to the audience.”
De Rothschild leads his courteous nature to a twin and argues that Charlotte, his senior, took over the lead from the womb by 10 minutes: “Charlotte said:” It's time to be born “and I thought we should wait two more months. “She said,” No, it's time to go! “” He also believes that Agius' dynamics and leadership qualities make her the ideal person to promote the gardens. “She has a huge, incredible energy, fantastic enthusiasm, wonderful knowledge and concentrates very well,” he says.
Agius returns the compliment: “We both have an unadulterated passion for the garden. If we go on the site, we will share ideas. It will” read about it “or” I would like to try it out “. We are like children in a sweet shop.”
Since both live on the property, these walks have become a worthwhile part of everyday life. “These gardens educate me. Every time I come to her, I see something that I have never seen before. It goes down a way for another time of day or in another season and something makes his party trick,” says Agius. “We will also notice where there is a gap or when something has died because it is a massive garden for Tom Clarke, our head gardener.”
Both admit that Exbury could not survive without Clarke, his team of 10 gardeners and 30 volunteers or the employee of the estate. They could not exist without the visitors. “We are very lucky and we are very happy to share this with you,” says de Rothschild.
Agius nods: “It is a privilege that leaves her socks every day. Nobody here takes it for granted.”
Exbury Gardens & Steam Railway, Exbury, Southampton, Hampshire; Exbury.co.uk