Dinomania

Posted on 07/03/2020 by The Garden History Blog

It’s not just children who love dinosaurs, everybody seems to, and that includes Historic England  who have just put several of them on the 2020 Heritage At Risk  Register. And no… that’s not because our leading heritage body is about 65 million years too late, but because a group of slightly more recent ones in a London park are falling to bits and are in danger of becoming as extinct as their ancestors.

If you’re confused about how  and why these “antediluvian monsters” got  there in the first place  and  how they became, and indeed still are, one of the city’s most popular attractions then you might be surprised by their story,

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The Pagoda at Chanteloup

Posted on 29/02/2020 by The Garden History Blog

If I asked you to think of a pagoda in  a European garden I suspect your automatic reaction would be to think of the one at Kew. But there is another, perhaps inspired by it, in an imposing position in the Loire Valley near Amboise.

It’s virtually all that remains of the great palace of Chanteloup, home to Louis XV’s prime minister, the Duc de Choiseul, who fell from grace in 1770. While the palace was destroyed like so many others in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the pagoda remains standing on the highest point of the estate. Although not for the faint hearted it can still be climbed and gives fantastic views over the surrounding countryside.

The pagoda overlooks a large formal semi-circular lake and [now dry] canal which was once part of the 8000 acres of the original park and formal gardens, and nearby are two pavilions,  with another lodge remaining nearer the town.

 

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Sylva Old and New

Posted on 22/02/2020 by The Garden History Blog

If you’ve heard of John Evelyn before now it’s probably because of his diaries which are one of our major sources of information about  the major events of the mid/late 17thc, and much much more besides. They gives a really good insight into of the life of an educated gentleman who was in the midst of public life. But Evelyn’s diaries were private and in his lifetime his fame rested on his writing – particularly about horticulture and gardening. Todays post is about one of his most important works, Sylva, and its contemporary update, The New Sylva.

The 1664 title page may look dull and you have to accept there are no nice pictures BUT is still the first major book about forestry and trees in Britain. To make up for it The New Sylva has stunning drawings by Sarah Simblet. Even if you’re not interested in reading the whole post I’d strongly advise that you scroll down to find the video link to Sarah Simblet talking about her work and the background to the book.

Sylva did not just shape people’s knowledge of trees but the way in which they were understood and valued.  Evelyn himself argued that “We had better be without gold than without timber.” [Sylva ch.31] and he seems to have persuaded a lot of others of that truth.

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Oronsay

Posted on 15/02/2020 by The Garden History Blog

The priory ruins, house and garden from Ben Oronsay from Jane Smith, Wild Island

I don’t often write about places I haven’t been but this is an exception for a place I’d like to go to. Like most of us I get magazines and newsletters from all sorts of organisations and usually just glance through them, so I wasn’t expecting anything wildly different when I saw the last issue of the Professional Gardener, the journal of the Professional Gardeners Guild. However when I started flicking the pages I noticed an article which made me go online as soon as I’d finished reading, to see what else I could find.

It was about a Penelope Hobhouse garden being baby-sat by a retired member of the PGG for a fortnight last summer.  Nothing strange maybe about that, but this garden was on one of the remotest inhabited islands in Britain, home to the ruins of a medieval priory,  a bird sanctuary,  a protected species of bee and normally just 2 people. I’m very grateful to Derek Hosie for permission to use his article as a starting point for this post about the Island of Oronsay.

And apologies if you were looking for a Valentine’s Day piece. Couldn’t think of anything romantic enough this year, but why not check an earlier post:  Romance in the garden…

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On the Life of a Jobbing Gardener

Posted on 08/02/2020 by The Garden History Blog

I was giving some lectures recently on one of my favourite horticultural characters, John Claudius Loudon, who, having already written a shelf-load of books, in 1826 founded The Gardener’s Magazine, the first real piece of regular horticultural journalism. I had only just started  browsing through the first few issues looking for examples of gardeners wages and working conditions that I could use in one of  the lectures when I  discovered a letter written to Loudon by Mr Archibald M’Naughton of Hackney on 29 November 1825 entitled “On the life of a Jobbing Gardener”. By the time I’d finished reading it I had already decided that Archibald’s story needed to be better known…

…and what better way of doing that than by sharing it here… Continue reading →

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