Elizabethan Gardens, English garden in Dare County, US
Elizabethan Gardens is an English garden on Roanoke Island in Dare County, North Carolina, situated near the water at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. The garden covers about 10 acres (4 hectares) and features winding paths, flower beds that change with the seasons, open lawn areas, and several sculptures.
The garden was created in the 1950s as a memorial to the English colonists who settled on Roanoke Island in the 1580s and officially opened in 1960. Those colonists, sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh, disappeared without explanation, and their fate remains unknown to this day.
The Sunken Garden area features an Italian marble fountain and a bronze figure representing Virginia Dare, the first child born in the English colonies of North America. This section of the garden is often chosen for small weddings, which gives it a particular place in local life.
The garden is open most days of the year, though hours are shorter in winter and it closes on a few holidays. Comfortable shoes are a good idea since the paths wind through the full grounds, and the Great Lawn area also welcomes picnics and family visits.
A very old stone sundial, over 500 years old, sits in the Queen Elizabeth II Rose Garden alongside roses sent directly from Windsor Castle. The rose garden also grows a variety called the Virginia Dare rose, bred specifically for this garden and known to bloom several times throughout the year.
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