Japanese Gardens

The final part of our visit to the National Stud was the Japanese Gardens, renowned throughout the world and the finest of their kind in Europe. The gardens were devised by Colonel William Hall Walker, a wealthy Scotsman from a famous brewing family, and were laid out by Japanese master horticulturist Tassa Eida and his son Minoru.Gardens Created between 1906 & 1910 and the layout symbolises the Life of Man. They are acclaimed as the finest Japanese Gardens in Europe. Eida’s work traces the journey of a soul from oblivion to eternity and portrays the human experience of its embodiment as it journeys by paths of its own choice through life. Birth, childhood, marriage, parenthood, old age, death and the afterlife are all brought to mind as the gardens, a seamless mixture of Eastern and Western cultures, are explored. Eida left Tully in 1912 with 34 years passing before the gardens gained their next supervisor, Patrick Doyle, who remained in charge until 1972, since when the gardens have continued to flourish and surge in popularity.