16 June 2017
Villa Della Pergola
Villa della Pergola and the little Villa, or Villino, are immersed in a luxuriant garden of 22,000 square metres, where Mediterranean planting blends with various typologies of rare plants and evocative, exotic flora in Alassio. The buildings boast a unique history, closely tied to the English community which had elected this corner of the Riviera amongst its favourite destinations for over-wintering between 1800 and 1900. In 1904 Edward Elgar was inspired by the town when composing his symphony “In the South (Alassio)”.
Villa della Pergola park was created by the Scottish General William Montagu Scott McMurdo in 1875 and at the beginning of the 1900s was passed to the Baronet Sir Walter Hamilton Dalrymple, cousin to Virginia Woolf. It was defined by William Scott as ''... one of the marvels of the Riviera, a worthy rival to the Mortola Gardens'', in his historic-artistic guide entitled “The Riviera” (1908).
The park underwent a great boost after 1922, when the property passed to Daniel Hanbury, second son to Thomas, the owner of the renowned Hanbury Gardens of the Mortola in Ventimiglia.
After a spell of neglect, the park was rescued from building development and carefully restored by the landscape architect Paolo Pejrone.
Visitors can stroll through maritime pines, cypresses, cedars of Lebanon, holm oaks and different varieties of citrus trees expertly planted amongst Jacarandas, Araucarias, bananas, palms, Dicksonia tree ferns etc from every latitude. The extraordinary collection of agapanthus consists of hundreds of different varieties, unique in number and quality. Romantic bowers of wisteria - over 28 variety - of banksiae roses link the different levels of the park, where delicate water lilies and the collection of lotus flowers flourish in the lakes and fountains surrounding the Villas.
Villa della Pergola park was created by the Scottish General William Montagu Scott McMurdo in 1875 and at the beginning of the 1900s was passed to the Baronet Sir Walter Hamilton Dalrymple, cousin to Virginia Woolf. It was defined by William Scott as ''... one of the marvels of the Riviera, a worthy rival to the Mortola Gardens'', in his historic-artistic guide entitled “The Riviera” (1908).
The park underwent a great boost after 1922, when the property passed to Daniel Hanbury, second son to Thomas, the owner of the renowned Hanbury Gardens of the Mortola in Ventimiglia.
After a spell of neglect, the park was rescued from building development and carefully restored by the landscape architect Paolo Pejrone.
Visitors can stroll through maritime pines, cypresses, cedars of Lebanon, holm oaks and different varieties of citrus trees expertly planted amongst Jacarandas, Araucarias, bananas, palms, Dicksonia tree ferns etc from every latitude. The extraordinary collection of agapanthus consists of hundreds of different varieties, unique in number and quality. Romantic bowers of wisteria - over 28 variety - of banksiae roses link the different levels of the park, where delicate water lilies and the collection of lotus flowers flourish in the lakes and fountains surrounding the Villas.
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Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books- John Lubbock - |
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