It’s Victoria’s Secret Garden
Rescued after 100 years of neglect – a stunning terrace fit for a Queen
YOU might think that every square inch of the grounds surrounding Osborne House would be welltrodden by visitors. After all, Queen Victoria’s former bolthole on the Isle of Wight has been open to the public since 1904 and is the number-one tourist attraction on the island.
Yet for more than a century, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s private garden terrace has remained out of bounds. Now, though, following a £600,000 restoration by English Heritage, this secret corner is accessible at last.
It is one of a series of four formal terraces under the rear walls of Osborne House. A spectacular circular fountain sits at its heart, with beds of seasonal flowers in each corner. The area is confined on one side by a pergola clothed with vines and climbing roses, while the opposite wall supports some venerable specimens of Magnolia grandiflora. The terrace is also home to several wall-trained myrtles (Myrtle communis), progeny of a plant grown from a cutting taken by Queen Victoria in 1845.
Sprigs of myrtle from Osborne have long been used in Royal wedding bouquets, including those carried by our Queen, Princess Diana and the Duchess of Cambridge.
A stone’s-throw from East Cowes, Osborne House was built in the mid-1800s by architect Thomas Cubitt in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo. Prince Albert compared the panoramic views over the Solent to those across the Bay of Naples.
Painted in an Italian-influenced shade known as ‘Osborne yellow’, the house sits within a 354-acre estate featuring formal terraces, manicured lawns and ornamental woodland. It was built as a summer retreat, providing a place for the Royal Family to escape the bustle of court life at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.
Queen Victoria loved to linger on the terrace especially, reading, writing and painting watercolours.
When she died in 1901, the property was taken on by her eldest son, Edward VII. But he preferred living at Sandringham and donated Osborne to the nation. Part of the house was later turned into a nursing home and until the early 2000s, the Queen’s private terrace was used primarily by its residents. Today, two flights of refurbished steps lead down to the terrace, where there are four beds planted with period-correct seasonal flowers. Canna lilies and brugmansia provide height among red antirrhinum and helichrysum. Elsewhere, there are beds filled with ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’ roses.
Set within a wall is an arched alcove guarded by bronze busts of Julius Caesar and Brutus. It has a mosaic floor, an ornate painted ceiling and walls decorated with shells gathered from the beach at the bottom of the garden by the Royal children.
The highlight for many will be the fountain at the centre of the terrace. Four short flights of steps flanked by sculptures of sea monsters and pots of agapanthus lead to a circular pool with a sculpture of Greek goddess Andromeda in the centre – bought by Victoria at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Charlotte Lock, a garden supervisor at Osborne for 28 years, said: ‘The fountain has never worked properly in all the time I’ve been here. It had one spout coming out of it and not all the individual plumes of water you can see now.’ An overhaul and new pump system ensures the water flows freely.
As part of the restoration, the balustrading, walls and other structures have been painted in a hue similar to the house. It helps unify the entire scheme and makes a big visual impact. Before its natty paint job, the stonework was simply dull concrete peppered with lichen.