Belmonte Arboretum

The Belmonte Arboretum is a botanical garden in Wageningen. It was an estate for a long time. In 1951, the estate was transferred to the former Agricultural College Wageningen, which set up the site as an arboretum. Until August 2009, the tree garden was scientifically managed. Large parts of the agricultural land on the Wageningen Mountain were owned by Lubbert Adolph Torck in the seventeenth century. Through Frans Godert van Lynden van Hemmen, part of this area came into the possession of his son-in-law Thierry Juste baron De Constant Rebecque de Villars, scion of the Dutch branch of the noble family De Constant Rebecque, in 1834 by inheritance. Around 1845 he built an Italian-style villa with spectacular views over the Lower Rhine. The Constant Rebecque de Villars gave the 17-hectare property the name Belmonte and had it converted into an estate. The site originally consisted of coppice forest, arable land and market gardens. The area was transformed by the landscape architect Jan David Zocher into a park in the English landscape style that was common at the time. Halfway up the slope came a berceau. The properties extended to the West over the Holleweg. Here a funerary monument was erected near the remains of an old chapel. In the eastern part, avenues were built and coppice management was converted into regular forest management. The mansion included a tea dome and a coach house. Barons and baronesses lived in the estate for many years, until it was sold to Het Geldersch Landschap and the municipality of Wageningen in 1936. The municipality built the Westbergweg on the purchased land, after a design by Jan Bijhouwer.

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