Our 10 hectare university Botanic Garden is set amongst beautiful mature woodlands on the southern outskirts of Durham city. We provide an academic resource to the university for teaching and research, as well as offering educational visits to schools.
Also open to the public, the Botanic Garden is a leading attraction in Durham, with guests young and old visiting throughout the year. Wander through the alpine garden, winter garden, bamboo grove, glasshouses and our recently developed woodland garden and wild flower meadow.
Explore this unique garden and discover something new around each corner over the changing seasons. Our visitor centre is open daily, for you to treat yourself to something refreshing in the coffee shop and visit the gift shop. Learn more about us and what’s here.
A guide book written for the Botanic Garden in the early 1970’s tells us:
“The first Botanic Garden in Durham was founded in 1925 when the grounds of the science laboratories where laid out as an experimental garden. As the sciences expanded within the University and more buildings were constructed the garden decreased proportionately, and it was decided in 1969 to move the garden to a new site where it could develop undisturbed and develop an identity of its own”
The Botanic Garden has been on this site since 1970. It was created primarily for teaching and research. As the garden matured a Visitor Centre was built and opened in 1988 by Dame Margot Fonteyn, the Chancellor of the University at the time, to accommodate the 6,000 annual visitors. The garden now attracts over 80,000 visitors annually.
