Acorns from the King: the rest of the story of Coronation Gardens

Posted on 13/05/2023 by The Garden History Blog

I know the excitement is over but…here’s the rest of the not-so-short history of Coronation Gardens which will bring it right up to date.

For the coronation of Edward VIII things were planned to be more organised horticulturally. In August 1936 the Marquis of Lothian chaired a meeting of  about thirty organisations interested in  trees  and gardens more generally who then joined forces to form the Coronation Planting Committee.  

 

 Edward’s sister-in-law, the Duchess of York, lent  her active support saying that she hoped their “proposals will be enthusiastically taken up, for now is the opportunity for our generation with the advice and good taste of the committee to add to the lasting beauty of our towns, villages and countryside.”   It was to be her last public speech as a Duchess because on December 10th Edward abdicated and she became Queen Elizabeth . 

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Crowning Glory: A short history of Coronation Gardens

Posted on 06/05/2023 by The Garden History Blog

I obviously can’t compete with the other events happening today but thought I could add a few thoughts about past coronations and how they have been celebrated in horticultural form.

In fact, until the 20thc, apart from occasional  tree planting by private landowners, there don’t seem to have been that many garden-related celebrations!  But when I tried to research more modern ones I often came up with a virtual blank, as  very few of these coronation memorial sites  have actually had their history well-recorded. But that’s never stopped me in the past so… read on to see what I have managed to discover…

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Inigo makes his mark: Athelhampton and The Formal Garden

Posted on 29/04/2023 by The Garden History Blog

This post is the result of a chance enquiry from a colleague who asked what I thought of the work of F.Inigo Thomas. If you’ve never heard of him don’t worry.  Luckily I  remembered  being impressed by a visit to Athelhampton, one of the gardens he designed. Then I remembered  he had provided most of the illustrations for Reginald Blomfield’s The Formal Garden in England  in 1892, so could waffle a bit more, but after that I was a bit stumped, so it was off to do a bit more research. If you like formal gardens  then I think you’ll be impressed too because, as Thomas himself said, “I think, as a nation, we are beginning once more to realise the charm of a formal garden.” 

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Another Swan Song

Posted on 22/04/2023 by The Garden History Blog

Way back in March 2021 I wrote a piece about swans,  which concentrated on their  history in parks and gardens in Britain from the mediaeval period through to the  17thc. Then  they were probably regarded as high status food as much as anything more aesthetic. I’ve been meaning to continue it ever since and today I’ve finally managed to get round to it!

From the 18thc onwards swans  were rarely eaten and so presumably kept, or encouraged to stay, simply because they are beautiful and ornamental. They  make the occasional  appearance in paintings of 18thc gardens, never centre stage, but  more  generally on water in the wider estate.

Whatever the reason that’s a good excuse to include a lot of nice images!

But swans didn’t  just grace the scene as living creatures,  they can be seen in statues, ornaments and decor both in interiors and gardens  including a recent rediscovery about one of England’s greatest lost gardens.

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Benjamin the orchidologist

Posted on 15/04/2023 by The Garden History Blog

These days we think nothing of having orchids as pot plants around the house. They’re piled high and sold cheap in every supermarket,  having been  grown by micropropagation in plant factories and then air-freighted in from all round the world.   But this hasn’t always been the case, as I was reminded by a recent Gardens Trust on-line lecture by Toby Musgrave about the excesses of wealthy Victorian garden owners.

This obviously included a lot about orchidmania with the mention of a nurseryman who specialised in growing orchids on a large scale – Benjamin Samuel Williams – whose nursery was in Holloway in north London.

Since that’s where I live I had to know more… 

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