It is near Ardingly, West Sussex in the High Weald (grid reference TQ340315), and comprises a late 16th-century mansion, a mainly 20th-century garden and, in a modern building, Kew's Millennium Seed Bank.

RBG Kew has leased the land from the National Trust since 1965 and much has been achieved in this time, from the Millennium Seed Bank project and the creation of the Loder Valley and Francis Rose Nature Reserves to the introduction of the visitor centre, the Seed café and Stables restaurant, along with the development of the gardens.

Wakehurst was bought in 1694 by Dennis Lyddell, comptroller of the Treasurer of the Navy's accounts and briefly MP for Harwich.

Nevill brought a lawsuit against Liddell who, rather than pay the damages of £10,000, handed the Wakehurst estate over to his younger brother Charles and went abroad.

In 1887, American architect Dudley Newton completed a replica of Wakehurst in Newport, Rhode Island, for sportsman and politician James J.

[9] Wakehurst is home to the National Collections of Betula (birches), Hypericum, Nothofagus (Southern Hemisphere beeches) and Skimmia.