Blithewold Mansion and Gardens

Blithewold Mansion sits at the top of a long, gently-sloped lawn overlooking Narragansett Bay, in Bristol, RI. It is surrounded by exquisite gardens, full of exotic trees and plants, from 90-foot giant sequoia to a Franklin tree, not seen in the wild since 1803.   The 70-acre plot was purchased in 1895 by Augustus and Bessie Pardee van Winkle, who built a Queen Anne style mansion and hired landscape architect John DeWolf to design the gardens. The original mansion burned in 1906 and Bessie, now married to William McKee, replaced it with a larger English Country Manor style mansion, and continued to expand the gardens.   Today Blithewold is a museum and arboretum that outshines many of the Bellevue Avenue mansions in Newport, located at an unassuming turn off Route 114 just south of Bristol. Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoy the sights; most-recently-added photos are at the end.

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star magnolia	Carolina silverbell	lichen-covered rock wall
magnolia stars	star magnolia	front door
weeping European beech	Franklin tree	Blithewold Mansion
star magnolia	weeping cherry	little giant sequoia
little giant sequoia	lichen	ground cover
Sargent's weeping hemlock	straight and narrow	Japanese cedar
Enclosed Garden	giant Sequoia	'Valley Forge' elms
giant Sequoia 2	giant Sequoia bark	giant Sequoia: looking up
Sequoia needles	Lord & Burnham greenhouse	bamboo grove
Lord & Burnham greenhouse	Lord & Burnham greenhouse	Rhode Island oranges
in the mood	nine-pointed stars	fig leaf
flower	bamboo	bamboo grove
bamboo grove	bamboo grove	antique spigot
water garden	stone bridge	reflecting pond
water garden	flowering tree	Narragansett Bay
Bristol and Narragansett Bay	shoreline	by the shore
the great lawn	Blithewold Mansion	Blithewold Mansion
Blithewold Mansion	antique bird spigot	antique bird spigot
fountain	steps	relaxing on the great lawn
old well	star magnolia and stripes	reflections
Blithewold Mansion	Blithewold Mansion	triple French doors
strolling the great lawn	porte-cochere copper roof	star magnolia
star magnolia	not a path	Carolina silverbell