Villa Piercy, Botanical garden in Bolotana, Italy
Villa Piercy is a two-storey white building with a pale terracotta hipped roof, built between 1879 and 1882 at Badde Salighes in the Marghine mountains. Its front has two round tower-like ends flanking a central brown double door reached by a short flight of steps, with evenly spaced rectangular windows on both floors. In front lies a low circular stone basin holding a lawn and a small central pool, and around the villa extends a four-hectare English-style garden.
Benjamin Piercy bought the land at public auction in 1879; the villa was built between 1879 and 1882 under his direction, first designed as a hunting lodge by engineer Francesco Sanna and completed with the upper floor by Piercy. The Welsh engineer was in Sardinia to design and direct the island's railway network. After years of abandonment, restoration of the building ended in 2007, followed by the botanical garden, a xylotheque and a herbarium within the Marghine-Goceano regional nature park.
The garden is named after Benjamin Piercy, the Welsh engineer commissioned to build Sardinia's railway network, who bought the land at Badde Salighes at public auction in 1879. He planted exotic species brought back from his travels alongside native oaks, holm oaks and chestnuts. The estate once covered about 3,700 hectares worked by employees housed at Badde Salighes and Padru Mannu, where a dairy and a small church dedicated to the Sacro Cuore stood.
The garden is accessible during the warmer months when plants are most active and paths are fully passable. It is advisable to wear sturdy shoes since the terrain is hilly and the ground conditions vary throughout the site.
The boxwood tunnel is made of Balearic boxwood (Buxus balearica), not the common Buxus sempervirens named in some accounts, and is considered among the longest in Italy. Benjamin Piercy planted it with exotics he brought back from his travels; the garden became a botanical garden after restoration ended in 2007.
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