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A detailed history (download/print)

History, mystery and fantasy are combined in these special gardens, which are a memorial to the first English colonists who came to North America in 1584-1587 and “walked away through the dark forest into history” as memorialized in Paul Green’s symphonic drama, “The Lost Colony”. For here and nowhere else, Sir Walter Raleigh made initial attempts to colonize the New World under Queen Elizabeth I. Truly this hallowed site is the birthplace of America.

The Garden Club of North Carolina adopted The Elizabethan Gardens as a project in 1951. In 1953 land was leased from The Roanoke Island Historical Association to begin building an English Pleasure Garden. In 1952 The Honorable John Hay Whitney donated an outstanding collection of European statuary and garden ornaments to the project. In 1953 the internationally acclaimed landscape firm of Innocenti and Webel were commissioned to design The Elizabethan Gardens.

From the beginning, garden club members have worked tirelessly to fund and assist in the development of these fine gardens. The Elizabethan Gardens were formally opened on Virginia Dare’s birthday, August 18, 1960.

Garden highlights include:

• The thatched roof, 16th century-style gazebo that overlooks Roanoke Sound
• A marble statue of Virginia Dare carved in Italy by Maria Louisa Lander
• The ancient live oak thought to be more than 400 years old
• The Sunken Garden with an antique Italian fountain as its central focal point
• The Shakespearean Herb Garden
• The Queen’s Rose Garden featuring pierced brick walls and The Queen Elizabeth Rose which was given to The Elizabethan Gardens by Queen Elizabeth II