Top 10 Madeira (Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guides)

Madeira’s Top 10
24
Quinta do Palheiro Ferreiro
The unmistakably English character of the Quinta do Palheiro Ferreiro was
stamped on the estate by its first owner, the wealthy Count of Carvalhal,
whose love of English landscapes led him to include woodland and grassy
meadows when the estate was laid out in 1804. Bought by John Blandy, an
English wine merchant, in 1885, the Quinta has remained in the same family
ever since, greatly enriched by the plants that Mildred Blandy imported from
China, Japan and her native South Africa.
Pink flowers and leaves of
the cymbidium orchid
The newly built Tea
House, serving delicious
home-made
cakes, stands at the
lower end of the garden,
bordering an
area of the estate
which is now run as a
golf course (see p48).
Visitors should note
that the house is
closed to the public.
• Caminho da Quinta do
Palheiro 32, São Gonçalo
• Map H5
• 291 793 044
• 9am–4pm Mon–Fri
• Admission €8
(children €4)
Top 10 Features
1 The Long Avenue
2 Stream Garden
3 The Sunken Garden
4 The Chapel
5 Long Borders
6 The Terrace
7 The Old House
8 Lady’s Garden
9 Hell Valley
0 Camellia Walk
! The Long Avenue
Plane trees and giant
camellias, many planted
200 years ago, line the
avenue. The crimson, pink
and white flowers are at
their best from November
to April, before the white
arum lilies and pretty blue
agapanthus take over.
Stream Garden @ The stream you cross
to enter the garden is fed
by a spring. Lined by azaleas,
rhododendrons and
scarlet tritonias, and
crossed by ornamental
bridges, it attracts bathing
robins and blackbirds.
£ The Sunken Garden
Water lilies fill the little
pool at the centre of this
pretty garden (above). Tall
cypresses mark its corners;
topiary shapes flank its four
sets of stone steps. In the
borders, gazanias mix with
beetroot-red house leeks.
$ The Chapel
The striking Baroque
chapel has Venetian-style
windows and a plasterwork
ceiling depicting Christ
being baptized in the River
Jordan by John the Baptist.
The Quinta is 8 km (5 miles) from the centre of Funchal, on the
route of town bus 37.