The Garden History Blog

Regency Gardens in Ackermann’s Repository of Arts

Posted on 24/05/2025 by The Garden History Blog

Ever since I’ve been researching garden history, one of my regular sources for information about gardens in the Regency period has been Ackermann’s Repository of arts an illustrated monthly British periodical that was published between 1809 and 1828.

I was searching through a copy the other day looking for an image for a lecture and suddenly realised that not only didn’t I know much about the magazine and its garden-related articles and pictures, but I actually knew nothing about Ackermann himself.

So off down another research rabbit hole….

A Garden Seat

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Philip Miller and his Gardener’s Dictionary

Posted on 17/05/2025 by The Garden History Blog

The frontispiece from the 8th edition of The Gardener’s Dictionary, 1768

I wonder if you’ve heard of Philip Miller. If you’re not a garden historian then probably not, but he was probably the most influential British horticulturist and garden writer of the eighteenth century, amongst other things writing the first dictionary of gardening. A member of the Royal Society, his reputation stretched not just across Britain, but its colonies and most of Europe.

Miller was also in charge of Chelsea Physic Garden for nearly 50 years, turning it into the leading botanic garden and hub of horticultural knowledge of the day. As a result he knew everyone of any importance connected with horticulture: aristocratic landowners, medics, scientists, plant collectors, and nurserymen, both at home and abroad.

Detail of an engraving of the Physic Garden, Chelsea: by John Haynes, 1751.

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Wild Men

Posted on 10/05/2025 by The Garden History Blog

Detail of the Wildman in the coat of arms of the Middleton family from a late 17thc stained glass window at their former home,Belsay Hall © English Heritage/ Bob Smith

I did a double-take when I saw this relief carving on the house I stayed in at Ubeda in central Spain recently. Heraldry is symbolic but who or what on earth were the two figures supporting the coat of arms of the family who had once lived there? Were they athletic men in fur coats throwing frisbees or…?

Of course, it didn’t take long to realise they were “Wild Men” one of the most delightful and fascinating inventions of the mediaeval imagination, and who persisted in popular culture right through until the late 18thc at least, and are now being used by English Heritage to help visitors understand the landscape and gardens at Belsay Castle in Northumberland.

The Wild Man of Belsay

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Mushrooms and magic , fungi and fairies

Posted on 03/05/2025 by The Garden History Blog

The Intruders, John Anster Fitzgerald,

Do you believe in fairies and magic? I’d guess that living in the 21st century the answer probably not. However, as I’m sure you realise, there is a long history in virtually every culture of supernatural creatures and powers of all kinds and belief in them was almost universal.

This post isn’t going to try and convince you to change your mind but instead follow up on last week’ post and look at the apparent link between magic and mushrooms and fairies and fungi.

As many of you will know I’ve lectured widely in the history of garden gnomes and one of the things that struck when i was researching for that was how many mushrooms and toadstools appeared in images of them and other “little folk”, whether in fairy stories or paintings. But why?

I wonder if it’s anything to do with the properties of certain mushrooms? So off we go down another research rabbit-hole. Continue reading →

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Mushrooms

Posted on 26/04/2025 by The Garden History Blog

Edible mushrooms from Revue d’horticulture belge 1913.

I made dinner for a friend the other day, pasta with a nice mushroom sauce, but was a bit puzzled when he looked and said “I don’t really like mushrooms. There’s just something about them that freaks me out. I mean how do you know they’re safe to eat?” He’s definitely a mycetophobe!

It led me to wonder where this uncertainty came from. Was that because of an irrational but inbuilt fear rooted in traditional stories about the dangers of eating fungi. Certainly , like most people, I’ve always been wary of picking them when I find them in my own garden because although most fruiting fungi are actually safe to eat, we all know that eating one of the few wrong kinds can cause hallucinations, illness or even death.

It then made me ponder about when we started cultivating mushrooms in the garden, and perhaps even more basically when did we start eating them and becoming mycetophiles?