RIPPON LEA GARDENS

Located only 20 minutes from Melbourne’s CBD, Rippon Lea Estate is one of the last of Australia’s grand suburban estates. It is a grand property that is National Heritage listed and a visit there is like peeking through a window that allows you to travel back in time and offers a unique glimpse into the lifestyles of the wealthiest Australians of the Victorian era. Rippon Lea Estate consists of a lavish urban mansion, a large garden, orchard and associated outbuildings (including the stable complex, the lodge, the conservatory and glasshouses, the fernery, the porte-cochere, the 1930s swimming pool, and the 1930s ballroom). The property has integrity as an uncommonly large and intact suburban estate, which survived subdivision and encroachment by suburbia.

Originally developed in 1868 in the Gardenesque style with geometric beds and paths, the garden was re-designed for the Sargood family by William Sangster in 1882. The Picturesque garden layout, with its irregular design and rustic devices such as the lake bridges, asks the viewer to see the garden vistas as a picture. This Romantic notion, part of the Picturesque aesthetic, encourages the visitor to use associations and ideas when viewing the garden.  To establish and support his exotic European style garden, Sargood constructed a stormwater harvesting, collection, storage and recycling system, which pumped water from the surrounding suburbs into the lake and then, throughout the garden. The National Trust is in the final stages of reinstating this system and intends to return the gardens to being a self-sufficient user of water.

This post is part of the Scenic Weekends meme,
and also part of the Sunday Bridges meme.