Victorian Jubilations

Posted on 04/06/2022 by The Garden History Blog

The Victorian  age saw public parks springing up all round the country. Rapid urbanization and industrialization led to poor housing, grinding poverty and fears of social unrest.   Parks were seen, by reformers, as one way of diffusing potential problems as well as improving the health and lives – to say nothing of  the morals-  of their working-class users.

Increasingly too, the creation of new parks  became a symbol of civic pride.

It was also the age of empire with years running up to the First World War  marking the high point of Britain’s imperial power.  These three factors coincided neatly with Queen Victoria’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees in 1887 and 1897.

 

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Georgian Jubilation

Posted on 28/05/2022 by The Garden History Blog

“England’s public parks and gardens have played a central role in the celebration and the commemoration of royal jubilees for more than two hundred years. The roll call of jubilee gardens, coronation parks, queen’s parks and parks named after princes and princesses reflect these special associations from the Victorian era to modern times. Many of these parks and gardens are of special historic interest and protected by designations.”

Those words of Baroness Andrews, the then chair of Historic England prefaced the publication in 2012 of Jubilee-ation a short history of Royal Jubilees in public park,  to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.  It was largely written by my fellow Gardens Trust trustee, David Lambert, and it remains a good read.

Ten years on with the first ever royal Platinum Jubilee I thought over the next couple of weeks it would be a nice gesture to look back at the subject again and also see how things have developed. But I’m going to start earlier than that.

God Save the King.                                                                                                                                                   Print issued for Golden Jubilee of George III. [Historic Royal Palaces & Mary Evans Picture Library]

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Pingle-Wingle, Lazy Maisie and Granny-jumps-out-of-bed

Posted on 21/05/2022 by The Garden History Blog

What on earth is this post about?  This is after all a blog about gardens, designed landscapes and sometimes plants and their history. If you’re from a rural background and of the right age to remember children’s country games you might well know what the title refers to.   But if you’re not  here are some more clues: it’s a plant sometimes known elsewhere  as old man’s nightcap, thunder flowers, scammony or Our Lady’s little glass.

Still none the wiser? I bet its one of those plants you definitely DON’T want. If you’ve got it  be prepared for a long losing battle because when I googled it almost every reference was to ways of eradicating it, with the admission that it was well nigh impossible…and unfortunately I’ve just spotted it beginning its assault all round my garden.

It is of course….

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Brodsworth

Posted on 14/05/2022 by The Garden History Blog

As you probably know the Gardens Trust has been running an extensive on-line lecture programme for the last 2 years, including a regular Wednesday evening slot called Unforgettable Gardens.  April’s lectures were run in partnership with English Heritage and included a talk on the gardens of Brodsworth Hall, a grand mid-Victorian country house in Yorkshire that has survived as an almost intact example of one man’s dream.

As it happened I’d been to Brodsworth  only days before Daniel Hale, the head gardener wowed our audience with an account of the gardens, their history and their restoration over the past twenty years.   Dan gave such a bravura performance  that I almost decided not to write about my visit – but since normally the blog gets wider and longer-lasting coverage than our lectures I thought I could give an account of what you missed and encourage you to get up to Yorkshire to see it at the first possible opportunity.

 

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Bevis Bawa @ Brief

Posted on 07/05/2022 by The Garden History Blog

Bevis Bawa supervising work by the gates of Brief. Pianting by Donald Friend, image from David Robson’s Bawa

Let’s start  with some not very good [actually pretty awful] poetry because  it gives a flavour of today’s subject:

In the land where the jaggery grows
And the skies are raucous with crows
Years ago on a pastoral hill
Which was left to him in a will
A young man was heard to declare
“I will build my kingdom here
And proclaim myself its chief
As the one and only
Bawa of Brief”

The “kingdom” was never particularly  large, and the “chief” gave much of it away during his lifetime but there’s no doubt that what was left – the “one and only” Brief which is an unexpectedly wonderful garden.

 

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