The Garden History Blog

Lawnmowers on Legs

Posted on 25/05/2019 by The Garden History Blog

from Country Life, 25th march 1954

As regular readers will know many of these posts are sparked by a chance discovery while researching something completely unrelated. Todays is certainly one of those odd quirks of fate.

I was looking at an article in a Country Life from 1954, but there on the following page was a much more intriguing short piece, which once I’d read it, I knew I had to follow up one day. Then I forgot. But a few days ago I saw its counterpart, also in Country Life, from some 50 years earlier, in 1903. So that was that it. I had to down tools on everything else and get researching kangaroos and wallabies in the British garden!

Wallabies at Leonardslee Gardens, Sussex

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged australia, james cook, Joseph Banks, kangaroo, menageries | Leave a comment

The Bucks stopped here…

Posted on 18/05/2019 by The Garden History Blog

detail from A Prospect of Carmarthen

For about three decades in the mid-18thc two brothers from Yorkshire, Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, toured Britain every summer. They sketched towns, landscapes, estates and antiquities, and every winter they turned their sketches into engravings for publication.

Their work is an important source of evidence of what there was, and what has gone – including gardens – but it is also an important factor in understanding the development of the whole idea of what it meant to be British in the 18thc.

The Buck Brothers, 1774, British Museum

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged nathaniel buck, samuel buck, William Stukeley | 2 Comments

Crackerbox Palace

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

Guess who…
from darkhorserecords

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.

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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.