The Garden History Blog

Crackerbox Palace

Posted on 11/05/2019 by The Garden History Blog

You probably recognize the title of this post and know where it comes from. If you do you probably recognize the man in the boater too. But anyone who knows me will be amazed that I’ve used it because I have very little knowledge and even less interest in “modern popular music” and never have had. So why have I been reading the lyrics of a couple of Beatles songs as well as the biography of one of the Fab Four? And why am I writing about it on a blog about garden history?

The clue is in the last 2 posts which have looked at the extraordinary garden at Friar Park in Oxfordshire created by Sir Frank Crisp between 1889 and his death thirty years later. Today I want to conclude the story with the story of what happened to the estate after his death in 1919, before finishing up [for a change] with some good news. Because Friar Park and its amazing alpine garden was saved by the man in the boater. It became “Crackerbox Palace” and then paid its benefactor back by showing him how wonderful gardening is and making it his overwhelming passion. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Beatles, frank crisp, friar park, George Harrison, gnomes | 8 Comments

The Henley Matterhorn

Posted on 04/05/2019 by The Garden History Blog

The front page of Alan Tabor’s fold-up map/guide to the garden c.1914

You might like to know there is a lecture about Friar Park on Wednesday 3rd Feb at 6.00 with a. recording available for a week afterwards.

Booking via Eventbrite:

Last week’s post gave an introduction to Friar Park at Henley, the madcap garden project of Sir Frank Crisp. Crisp was not only rich he was also imaginative and ambitious – a good combination for someone never satisfied with what he had achieved in his garden. As Gardeners Chronicle said in 1899 “small wonder… Mr Crisp.. is ever making such alterations and additions as shall render it ever more interesting and beautiful.”

The whole site was eclectic, drawing on his interest in medieval and Tudor history, but also his openness to new ideas and directions such as the fashion for the Japanese. But it’s his Alpine garden which really bought the garden to public attention. It might make you want to giggle as much as admire but there’s no doubt that Frank Crisp had panache and a pronounced sense of humour… as well as a collection of gnomes.

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alpine Gardening, frank crisp, friar park, gnomes, grotto, Japanese Garden | 3 Comments

Sir Frank Crisp and Friar Park

Posted on 27/04/2019 by The Garden History Blog

Sir Frank Crisp frontispiece of The Garden, vol 80, 1916

Way back in March 2017 I wrote about gnome-loving eccentric, Sir Charles Isham, and at the time thought there couldn’t be anyone else quite as besotted with the little men in red hats. But I was wrong! Don’t be fooled by this serious photo into thinking Sir Frank Crisp, a wealthy London lawyer, was another dull and boring worthy. He was actually a wealthy London lawyer with a difference, because he was also a jovial prankster, who built a Gothic revival palace near Henley and then added a vast alpine/mountain garden to complement it, despite the fact that there aren’t any mountains near Henley. To make matters more interesting he then decided to people it.

So today’s and next week’s posts are going to be about this philanthropic eccentric who died 100 years ago on April 29th 1919,and his garden

Friar Park

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged alan tabor, charles isham, ernest milner, frank crisp, friars park, Topiary | 4 Comments

A Maiden’s Blush: the first book of Roses

Posted on 13/04/2019 by The Garden History Blog

detail of Rosa centifolia, the Bishop Rose

The British Library Rare Books room is not usually the place where people get over-excited, but occasionally there are Eureka moments. Sometimes they’re the result of long patient reference checking when you realise your original hypothesis is true, or ploughing through vast tomes for a good quote to prove a point or grab a reader’s attention and sometimes they are simply serendipity. Today’s post is one such.

Rosa pendulina, or the Rose without thorns

Following a discussiion in one of the clkasses I teach, I had an idea for a worthy post on how and why women became widely involved in botany in the late 18thc and thought I’d call up a selection of books and magazines by women from the period to see if I could find anything interesting to write about. They included a couple by an artist named Mary Lawrance who I thought, to judge from her brief Wikipedia entry might be interesting but probably wasn’t going to set the world on fire. See what you think?

Rosa gallica, red officinal rose

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ellen willmott, Kennedy & Lee, loutherbourg, mary lawrance, redoute, Roses | 5 Comments

Mechanical Landscapes: The Eidophusikon

Posted on 06/04/2019 by The Garden History Blog

detail from a sketch of the Eidophusikon by Edward Burney, British Museum

Last weekend I went to see a modern version of something that in 1776 gripped London like a fever. But rather than a medical crisis it was an all-embracing visual experience: a series of stories that involved landscape… & not static views of the countryside rather landscape that moved.

The story begins with the staging by the Swiss father and son team Pierre and Henri-Louis Jaquet-Droz, of their Spectacle mechanique in Covent Garden. Originally watchmakers they had branched out into building other mechanical devices and then travelled Europe exhibiting 4 pieces of their work. It was to inspire a Frenchman living and working in London to develop of one of the strangest of many strange 18thc inventions: the Eidophusikon.

Continue reading →