House, Gardens & Cafe Open Tuesday - Sunday 10.30 - 17.00

Nature Day 2023

14th May 2023 10:30-17:00

Please Buy Tickets On The Door!

Our annual celebration of the natural world.

A great family day out where children can experience nature first hand!

Throughout the day there will be a range of activities led by our environmental experts:

• 10.50am, 1pm & 3.30pm: Tree Walks with the Woodland Trust (around 20 minutes)

• 11.15am–12.15pm & 3.15-4.15pm: Pond Dip Displays with Hampshire & Isle of Wight Amphibian and Reptile Group (drop in throughout the hour)

• 11.30am & 2pm: Bug Hunting with Gilbert White’s Education Team (activity lasts around 20 minutes)

• 12pm-1pm: Walk up to the ZigZag path to Selborne Common with the National Trust

• 12pm – 2pm: Sophie Hacker, Artist in Residence, Make an Oak Leaf (drop in)

• 12.30pm & 3pm: Birdwatching with Naturetrek (around 30 minutes)

• 1.30pm: Lichen Walk with Alton Natural History Society

• 2.30pm: Spider Walk with Alton Natural History Society

 

We welcome nature and conservation groups from across the area who help visitors connect with nature. Each stallholder brings an exciting activities to the event, enabling children to collect stamps as they explore the stallholder trail.

Participants in Nature Day include:

  • Hampshire Bat Group – Create your own bat finger puppet!
  • Hampshire & Isle of Wight Amphibian and Reptile Group – Discover amphibians and reptiles
  • National Trust – Try A Wildlife Spotter Activity Sheet
  • NatureTrek – Join in the children’s games and activities focused around local wildlife and their habitats
  • River Wey Trust – Jump into the world of Augmented Reality with the Sandbox that interactively demonstrates landscape and river flows. There will also be a water display with an interactive invertebrates hunt
  • RSPB – Discover different wildlife habitats (from bug hotels to hedgehog homes)
  • Selborne Landscape Partnership – Make a Memory Stick of your Nature adventure. Also explore local farming conservation work happening in Selborne.
  • Sophie Hacker – Artist in Residence – Make an oak leaf art and craft activity in the Discovery Room, and contribute to a future museum installation!
  • Dr Terry Biddington – Scholar in Residence – Take a closer look at the earthworm – A chance to get up close to these soily creatures, understand their variety and importance and learn more about GW’s ‘ground-breaking’ work as the father of ecology
  • Gilbert White’s Field Studies Centre – Discover all that Gilbert White’s House & Gardens has to offer!
  • Alton Natural History Society – Explore how moth traps work and what type of moths you could see
  • Woodland Trust – Try out the Nature Detective Activities
  • The Forest School Company – Get stuck in with learning Forest School skills
All children (under 16) go free to Nature Day and entrance for adults is £9, this includes admission to the house and gardens.
Tickets are available on the DOOR!!

    Gilbert Whites House

    Gilbert White was aged 7 or 8 when the White family moved from the Vicarage on Selborne’s Plestor, to this house, called ‘The Wakes’ (named after the Wake family who had lived here previously). At that time the property would have been no more than a ‘two up, two down’  but over the subsequent years lots of extensions and additions have been made, creating the long sizeable house you see today.

    The rooms have been restored following descriptions in White’s own correspondence and include a chair he used at Oriel College, Oxford (loaned from the College), items of contemporary furniture, family portraits and bed hangings embroidered for him by his aunts.

    On display is the original manuscript of his book, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, which was purchased with generous help from English Heritage and others.

    Learn more