Victorian Glasshouse in the walled garden at Staunton Farm (Staunton Country Park)

The Leigh Park estate took shape in 1802, when William Garrett bought agricultural land, laid out pleasure grounds and turned the farm into a ferme ornée. According to Hampshire County Council, he built the first hot houses and glasshouses in the walled garden, and its sinuous crinkle-crankle wall. In 1820 Sir George Staunton, an orientalist who spent many years with the East India Company, bought the estate; he added a lake and garden follies and brought in many plants from China. A walled garden already appears on an early nineteenth-century map, but the present enclosure seems to have been built by Staunton, on the same site and to a different alignment, by 1833.

After Staunton's death in 1859 the estate was sold in 1861 to William Henry Stone, who built a new mansion; it was demolished in 1959. Portsmouth City Council acquired the estate to build the Leigh Park housing estate, in 1944 according to Hampshire County Council and in 1946 according to the register. The park became Staunton Country Park in 1987. When it was described in 1998 the register noted that a former stove house had gone, that the octagonal Victoria Regina house had been restored in 1993, and that further twentieth-century glasshouses stood north of the garden.

Since the Heritage Lottery Fund project of 2017 the farm and the park have been run as two separate sites, and the glasshouses belong to Staunton Farm.

The walled garden, about 60 m by 60 m, is enclosed by brick walls listed at Grade II, the south side of which undulates in crinkle-crankle fashion. Paths divide it into four quarters planted with fruit, vegetables and floral bedding. According to Historic England's register, a range of glass against the north wall contains a vinery and hot houses. A former stove house has gone; the octagonal Victoria Regina house, with its heated pond, stands south of a new stove house and was restored in 1993. North of the garden survive further twentieth-century glasshouses, the remnants of pineapple and melon pits and the site of a cone house.

The operator now speaks of a tropical Victorian glasshouse, the largest on England's South Coast, without giving its dimensions or its date of construction.

The tropical glasshouse presents plants from several regions of the world; Visit Hampshire mentions coconut palms, giant bamboo and bananas. Its pool holds a giant Amazon water lily planted in spring: Visit Hampshire places the lily in the pool from May to November, blooming from late June to August, whereas the team announced in April 2026 that it expected flowers towards the end of May. A display on pollinators and a trail of ten signposted stops, spread between the glasshouse and the walled garden, complete the visit.

Outside, the walled garden offers a wide range of summer flowers alive with bees and butterflies. The operator states that many of the plant species in the walled garden were first introduced in the nineteenth century. The neighbouring park holds the National Collection of Lardizabalaceae, which includes the genera Akebia and Stauntonia, according to the Royal Horticultural Society.

The glasshouse stands in the walled garden, south of Middle Park Way, in the part of the site run as Staunton Farm. Access to the glasshouses, the walled garden and the farm is charged, whereas the park north of the road remains free. Summer is when the walled garden is in fullest flower; the giant water lily occupies its pool from May to November according to Visit Hampshire.

A visit combines with the ornamental farm, the maze and the Regency Farmhouse, and then, across the road, with Leigh Water, the Shell House and the other follies of Sir George Staunton's park. Lewis Vulliamy's Gothick Library of 1832 stands beside the wall of the walled garden.