Schools Education - Wakehurst Place

Setting the scene

Wakehurst Place, in the beautiful High Weald of Sussex, is an area of outstanding natural beauty with two conservation areas and the Millennium Seed Bank

The 465 acres (188 hectares) of the estate contain a variety of environments with a wide range of habitats, from the formal gardens near the Mansion to the wildflower meadows and wilderness of the woodland in the Loder Valley Reserve. The wet habitats include ponds and streams, a reed swamp, Westwood Lake and a Bog garden (for younger children) with its dipping platform.

Westwood Lake, the Field Study Centre and the Loder Reserve

Wakehurst Place offers a real opportunity for developing field study techniques and pupils can investigate their natural environment through pond-dipping, mini-beast searches, soil sampling, map-reading, observation and recording.

The combination of woodlands, wetlands and meadows in the Loder Valley Nature Reserve makes Wakehurst Place one of the most important conservation sites in south-east England. The wetland conservation area at the bottom of Westwood Valley gives a good flavour of the variety of habitats in the reserve itself, and the nearby classroom students to make the most of their educational visits. Almost half of all the plant species known to be endangered in Britain are wetland species.

The Millennium Seed Bank Project

The largest seed bank in the world - is specially designed to welcome and inform visitors of all ages and offers a unique opportunity for study for schools, colleges and universities. You can find out about the need for the conservation of seeds, and watch scientists working on the process of cleaning, drying and storing the seeds and doing research into their germination and growth. There are many interactive touch screen computers to help you find out more.

Outside the seed bank there is a series of 8 raised beds (parterres), each representing a different UK habitat from a shingle beach to a traditional cornfield. Each bed has a special collection of native UK plants whose seeds are safely stored in the vaults of the seed bank.

Millennium Seed Bank

Schools at Wakehurst Place