The Garden History Blog

The Bloedel Reserve

Posted on 31/10/2020 by The Garden History Blog

Doesn’t time fly? This time last year I was lucky enough to visit this beautiful house and its even more beautiful garden. Despite appearances it’s not an elegant little 18thc chateau in France but a 1930s building on an island in the middle of Puget Sound, about half an hour by ferry from Seattle.

It was bought in 1951 by a timber magnate Prentice Bloedel and his wife Virginia. Their vision was both ambitious and unique, and led to the creation of what is now known as the Bloedel Reserve. It was a true case of poacher turned gamekeeper, because the Bloedels took on a place that had been logged and turned it into a place of forest conservation.

It is not by any stretch of the imagination “a place of horticultural exhibition, but a place of contemplation that renews the spirit.” And while it’s difficult to convey the atmosphere I hope the photos will help show how the Bloedels captured “the genius of the place.”

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Canal, conservation, Japanese Garden, landscape garden, moss garden, Richard Haag, Seattle, Thomas church, woodland garden | 4 Comments

The March of Bricks and Mortar

Posted on 24/10/2020 by The Garden History Blog

detail from Soho Square, from Ackermann’s Select Views of London, 1812

More on London squares. A couple of weeks ago I looked at the beginning of Rus in Urbe – the idea of the countryside being bought into the city and the way that it changed their layout and planting. What I didn’t say then was that in some ways the mixing of urban and rural wasn’t such a strange concept to Georgian Londoners. Elements of the countryside were ever-present. As can be seen from contemporary images animals were still a frequent sight on the streets – and not just going to the markets or butchers. There were sheep in Cavendish Square and cows in St James Park where visitors could buy fresh milk direct from the dairymaids.

However by the end of the 18thc this was beginning to change and today’s post continues the story of London’s squares into the 19thc when the city expanded rapidly in what George Cruikshank satirised as the March of Bricks and Mortar. He could easily have added the march of shrubberies, iron railings, locks and keys.

London Going out of Town or the March of Bricks and Mortar

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Belgravia, Bloomsbury, Foundling Hospital, George I, Grosvenor, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London Square, Portman Square, Prince Puckler-Muskau, Queen Square, railings, Soho, statues, Thomas Cubitt, Thomas Fairchild | Leave a comment

The Crystal Palace of Paris

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

The Grande Serre or Palais Cristal

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.