Mount Stewart Gardens, House and Temple of the Winds is Ireland's premier garden, rightly renowned throughout the world for its remarkable plant collections and unique design. It was created within an old demesne on the shores of Strangford Lough, whose fine parkland trees and shelter belts were established for the house of the 1780s. A celebrated garden building, the Temple of the Winds, was added to this part in 1872 and the house was enlarged in 1804 and during the 1830s.
The present garden was begun in 1921 by Edith, Lady Londonderry, who, taking advice from the foremost plantsmen of the day, including Gertrude Jekyll, created a garden of extraordinarily diverse design and planting held together by a web of family and historical imagery. An eclectic series of topiary includes the Italian Garden, the Spanish Garden, the Maori Garden and the Sunken Garden. Further afield, paths wind through an eight-acre pleasure ground, incorporating an artificial lake and areas of woodland and shrub, whose incomparable plant collections, greatly aided by the mild climate, make this a place of bewildering beauty.