About 200 people take a peek inside Harborough's Hammond Arboretum on rare open day
Residents enjoyed a rare opportunity to stroll around The Hammond Arboretum in Harborough on Sunday.
Around 200 people visited the 2.4 acre site, behind the Robert Smyth Academy on Burnmill Road, which was open to the public through the National Gardens Scheme.
The arboretum was purchased in 1911 by Francis Hammond, the first headmaster of Market Harborough County Grammar School. He dedicated time to planting and extending the arboretum during his years as headmaster and his retirement.
Among the some 300 trees and shrubs, are some so rare that, in Britain, they only otherwise seen at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Also among them are 33 champion trees - either the oldest or largest specimens in Great Britain.
Mr Hammond continued planting site for 22 years and kept meticulous records of each specimen in a register, now held by the volunteers who maintain the site.
Volunteer Edmund Brown is one of the long-standing volunteers maintaining the site
He said: “My association with the arboretum goes back over 70 years. My father was at the caretaker at the school so I’ve grown up on the site.
“I like to see it continuing. After Mr Hammond died, up until the 90s, it fell into serious s decline but now it really is a gem - on a national scale and even internationally, people recognise it.
“There are so many trees which are significant. And it’s the only woodland patch in a wide area of housing estates so it really is very significant.”
Visit hammondarboretum.org.uk for details on more open days planned next year.