The Garden History Blog

The Crystal Palace of Paris

Posted on 17/10/2020 by The Garden History Blog

Last week’s post looked at the background to the 1867 Paris Universal Exhibition, and in particular at its parkland setting. It was the first world fair to give horticulture a major role with one section of the park covering about 3ha [7.5 acres] set aside almost exclusively for it. This was known as the Jardin Reservé which roughly translates as the Private Garden. At its centre was a large conservatory known as the Grande Serre or the Palais Cristal.

The Universal Exhibition had plenty of English visitors including William Robinson, writing for the Gardeners Chronicle and the Rev TC Brehaut writing for the Journal of Horticulture. Both blew hot and cold over what they saw but Brehaut decided eventually that it was all “most skilfully and tastefully laid out, producing the finest landscape effects which undulating grounds, water, rock work, grottoes, trees and shrubs are capable of.”

A view across the Jardin Reserve or Private Garden

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged aquarium, aquatic garden, aviary, Bandstand, cacti, cascade, conservatory, France, garden buildings, Garden tools, greenhouse, grotto, International Exhibition, kiosk, paris, parterre, rock garden, William Robinson, winter garden | 1 Comment

The 1867 Paris Expo

Posted on 10/10/2020 by The Garden History Blog

A view of the French quarter of the park

I had a lot of comments about the recent posts on the RHS gardens in Kensington which were used as the centrepiece for the 1862 International Exhibition. The concept of a world expo was then comparatively novel. There had only been the Great Exhibition of 1851 and France’s attempt to outdo that with the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855. The Kensington show sparked Napoleon III’s interest in planning another, grander event. Napoleon’s aim for the exhibition was, apart from the glory of Napoleon, the promotion of France as a world power, and Paris as the cultural capital of the world.

Design for a bandstand

The city was in the middle of being transformed dramatically. Baron Haussmann was rebuilding and replanning much of the old city, and incidentally creating an extensive and well-funded municipal park system. The Exposition universelle d’art et d’industrie was designed to complement his work and showcase new modern France.

The Imperial government commissioned some of the best artistic, literary and scientific talent in France to promote the exhibition, including Victor Hugo. In his introduction to the guide to Paris for 1867 Hugo asked : “What is a World’s Fair? The world as neighbours. We talk a bit together. We come to compare ideals. An apparent confrontation of products, in reality a confrontation of utopias.” [remember that when you get to the end of the post]

Gardeners Chronicle covered the exhibition in considerable depth because as their correspondent in Paris, none other than William Robinson, wrote : “The world has seen some great shows of this kind, but this is the first instance in which horticulture has received the attention it deserves in connection with what purports to be an all embracing display of human work, art and taste.”

Édouard Manet, View of the 1867 Exposition Universelle

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged conservatory, France, Great exhibition, International Exhibition, paris, recreation, William Robinson | Leave a comment

Speculation and ‘the Rural Manner’

Posted on 03/10/2020 by The Garden History Blog

The statue of Charles II in Soho Square, detail from Soho Square
Sutton Nicholls, c.1720s

Last week I discussed the origins of London squares and looked at the earliest examples. Today I’m going to look at what happened after the Great Fire of 1666 when the balance of the city’s population shifted to the suburbs and particularly to the western ones where air pollution was less severe. It coincided with the withering away of royal control over building licences so that landowners became free to capitalise on their estates almost at whim. This quickly led to a speculative building boom in which landowners leased sites to speculative builders, usually for 99 years at a low ground rent, who did the dirty work and took the risks. The result was that the new squares and their adjacent terraced streets became the foundations for the shape of modern London.

Golden Square, Soho

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The statue of Charles II in Soho Square, detail from Soho Square
Sutton Nicholls, c.1720s

Golden Square, Soho

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bedford Square, Bloomsbury, Cavendish Square, Charles Bridgeman, City Gardener, covent garden, Golden Square, Gray's Inn, Grosvenor, Leicester Square, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London Square, Marylebone, Nicholas Barbon, Queen Square, railings, Soho, St James Square, Thomas Fairchild, wilderness | Leave a comment

Before the Square

Posted on 26/09/2020 by The Garden History Blog

detail of Hollar’s Covent Garden, 1647

I’m often asked to talk about the history of London’s squares and I always wonder what causes this almost endless fascination. Of course there’s no doubt that, as the London Gardens Trust says, “squares are one of the defining features of London. Like other European cities, London has its grand civic spaces, but no other city has developed the garden square in quite the same way.”

They have survived changes in taste and style, war and reconstruction and all the vicissitudes of finance and management problems. I suspect that is largely due to their spatial integrity which has largely remained intact despite the street scene changing drastically over the past 400 years. We have seen buildings refaced, redeveloped or replaced, trees, shrubs, paths, lighting, and railings have come and gone, but despite everything the successful combination of architecture and horticulture has somehow survived.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to look at London squares and their history beginning today with “where did the idea for a square come from?”

Hollar’s Prospect of Lincoln ‘s Inn Fields c1640-50

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bloomsbury, covent garden, Francis Bacon, Gray's Inn, Hollar, John Summerson, Leicester Square, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London Square, Moorfields, St James Square | 1 Comment

Kensington goes Italian

Posted on 19/09/2020 by The Garden History Blog

from Nesfield’s published plan May 1860

Last week I wrote the background story of the Royal Horticultural Society’s magnificent but short-lived gardens in South Kensington, and today I want to follow up with an account of the gardens themselves designed by William Andrews Nesfield.

from Nesfield’s published plan May 1860

When I sat down to write this I wasn’t sure where to start or how to go about describing such an enormous space that was at once doubly simple and complex. Simple in that the overall design is visible almost in a glance, but complex in that each section is very elaborate in detail, and while simple in terms of planting it is complex in its overall content.