The Roads Beautifying Association was founded in 1928 by Lord Mount Temple the then Minister of Transport, to provide an organization through which the voluntary services of horticultural experts were made available to local authorities, and others responsible for highway planting and the preservation of trees. Planting advice was also extended to new industrial estates and the rehabilitation of slag heaps and other derelict land. Lionel de Rothschild, a keen and expert horticulturalist, was an active chair of the technical sub-committee.
Writing to The Hampshire Chronicle in 1937, Lionel gave the philosophy of the Association as being to 'let the poor man have the same pleasure from driving up to his cottage or his house as the rich man can get from his private drive'.
