The Elizabethan Gardens in Manteo sits on the very ground where 117 men, women, and children landed in 1587 as part of the third voyage to the New World — more than 200 years before the founding of America itself.
Walking through the gardens connects visitors to a history that predates the nation by nearly two centuries. The Lost Colony landed on these grounds, built a fort, and lived next to a Native American village that is also on the property.
That history is now drawing renewed attention during the America 250 celebration.
75 years ago, the Garden Club of North Carolina attended a production of the Lost Colony on the site. The group was inspired by the story of the colonists vanishing, never to be seen again, and by the question of what they might have built had they stayed. The colonists would have built homes, plowed fields, and planted crops — and likely would have constructed a pleasure garden in the Elizabethan style. That idea became the seed of inspiration for the gardens that exist today.
Nods to this history are found throughout the grounds, including statues of Queen Elizabeth I, who commissioned the three voyages to the New World, and Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World.
The first English settlers arrived here roughly 21 years before Jamestown.
Elizabethan Gardens Executive Director Brendan Medlin said the America 250 celebration has made sharing that history with visitors even more meaningful.
"I was just expecting a garden, and what I found instead was history and art and all these nooks and crannies of beauty that I was not expecting," Medlin said.
Medlin shared that quote from a letter he received from a visitor who toured the gardens in May.
"That's what we want in a historical year for our country, it's special for our neighbors to know that right here we have so much history to share in Manteo," Medlin said.
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