The Garden History Blog

The Beasts of Bexley…

Posted on 26/10/2014 by The Garden History Blog

The Dacre Dolphin
c.1507-25, repainted 1844
V&A

Would you expect to find a large red dragon in a garden in Bexley? Or a griffin lurking behind a hedge at a castle near Cardiff? To say nothing of a dolphin on a staircase in Kensington or an English leopard in a French camping site? Probably not: but then again, perhaps you’re not an aficionado of Tudor garden ornaments and especially Tudor heraldic beasts.

Having decided to write a post about them I made a mental list of the ones that I knew about – Hampton Court, Kew and the V&A but then I began to run out of steam, so I did what we all do and “googled”. And got a bit of a shock, because I found photos of a set of royal beasts at Hall Place in Bexley in south-east London. I’ve lived in London for 35 years but there are still parts of it I have never even visited and being a north Londoner my knowledge of south of the river is limited. All I knew of Bexley, for example, was what I could see from the main road down to the Channel Tunnel but I’ve been missing out as I discovered when I went to see the beasts for myself.

Hall Place, Bexley© David Marsh 2014

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged English Heritage, Hampton Court, Henry VIII, Kenilworth Castle, Topiary, Tudor, whitehall | 2 Comments

Eternal Wrest…

Posted on 18/10/2014 by The Garden History Blog

Wrest Park is a rarity. I’ve heard comments that the house looks a bit like a mundane French provincial station but, if so, it is a Grade 1 listed French provincial railway station, and mundane on the outside only. Inside it is opulently spectacular (if unfurnished) in the rococo revival style. But truly splendid though the newly restored interior is, the house is, at once, both overshadowed and complemented supremely by its setting. English Heritage have to be congratulated on the immense progress they have made since they took over the estate in 2006 and initiated a 20 yr restoration plan for what is one of the greatest landscape gardens in Britain.

The house seen from the rose garden
David Marsh 2014

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Banqueting House, Bathhouse, Bowling Green, Canal, Capability Brown, Chinese bridge, English Heritage, Grey, John Rocque, Kip & Knyff, orangery, Restoration, Thomas Archer, Wedgwood | Leave a comment

Tiglath-Pileser I & the passion he shared with William Robinson

Posted on 11/10/2014 by The Garden History Blog

Relief of Winged Man-Headed Figure with Basket and Fircone, from Nimrud c.850BC Brooklyn Museum

Relief of Winged Man-Headed Figure by the sacred tree, from Nimrud c.850BC
Brooklyn Museum

It’s not every day that an exotically multi-syllabled king of ancient Assyria gets mentioned in the context of Brtain’s historic parks and gardens. But I was writing a lecture about early plant hunting and decided to start with evidence from antiquity when I noticed a reference to ancient Assyria and discovered King Tiglath-Pileser I and so, as many times before, idled away a few hours investigating further…

William Robinson
by Vandyk, c.1930
© National Portrait Gallery, London

…and in the process discovered that he had something in common with William Robinson the great Irish gardening writer, promoter of the wild and natural garden, and owner of Gravetye Manor in Sussex

You might not know about their shared love now but I hope you will have worked it out by the end of this post!

Tiglath-Pileser I was one of the greatest Assyrian monarchs, ruling from about 1114 to 1046 BC. He did not just conquer many rival states but he also left behind the first set of royal annals to record his achievements. He may have been an aggressive military ruler but he had a soft spot too…….which was ????

Detail from a stone relief from xxxx
Britsih Museum

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged arboretum, Bishop Compton, Capability Brown, Cedar of Lebanon, Chelsea Physic Garden, chiswick, Christopher Gray, Edinburgh Botanic Garden, Edward Lear, Francis Frith, Fulham Palace, George London, Goodwood, Gravetye, Highgate cemetery, Horace Walpole, Humphry Repton, John Claudius Loudon, John Evelyn, Lord Burlington, nurserymen, Pierre Belon, plant hunters, Sayes Court, trees, Uvedale, William Lucas, William Robinson, William Sherard, Wilton | Leave a comment

The humble spade…

Posted on 04/10/2014 by The Garden History Blog

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)
author of Fahrenheit 451
New York Times

George Bernard Shaw,
by William Flower, 1937
National Portrait Gallery

A short article in the newspaper the other day reminded me of my promise to write about garden tools from time to time. If you didn’t catch the story then try to guess what sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury and George Bernard Shaw had to do with garden spades… or rather a particular garden spade and why were they all in the news that day? Answer at the end of this post.

In the meantime here’s some more about the history of humble spade, the tool that’s at the top of every list of historic garden tools. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Adam, Bicton, Garden of Eden, George Bernard Shaw, Ray Bradbury, Spade, stained glass | Leave a comment

Sir John Soane and gardens … continued

Posted on 19/09/2014 by The Garden History Blog

Design for a garden seat from John Soane’s Designs in architecture ; consisting of plans, elevations and sections, for temples, baths, cassines, pavilions, garden-seats, obelisks, and other buildings ; for decorating pleasure-ground, parks, forests, etc, 1778

In a recent post I looked at Pitzhanger, the country retreat of Sir John Soane. But Soane was interested in gardens at several other levels. Firstly he designed garden buildings, publishing a series of ideas and plans for seats, temples, tea houses and pavilions. That’s perhaps not surprising. He was after all an architect and in his early days an architect desperate to get commissions. There are also schemes for some gardens to accompany his major country house commissions. What is perhaps more interesting is that he also collected plans and drawings not only by other architects, including Robert Adam, but also by garden makers like George London and Henry Wise. Many of them are in his collection at the Soane Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in central London.

Robert Adam, Preliminary design for a Seat of Wood & Canvass for Lady Scarsdale, c1760-70, unexecuted
Sir John Soane’s Museum

Amongst the Adam drawings that Soane collected are a whole series of garden buildings and paraphernalia for Kedleston in Derbyshire, including a wood and canvas garden seat for Lady Scarsdale, and some designs for ‘a garden hut for Miss Curzon’

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