The View from Room 35….

Posted on 09/03/2019 by The Garden History Blog

View from the window
Pushkin Museum Moscow

Last week’s post about finding a display of Barbie dolls in  an historic Spanish garden was a good indication of how varied garden history can be, and today’s is another. In fact today’s is hardly about gardens at all in the conventional sense, but don’t let that put you off.

The Garden Trust has as its tagline or motto “Research Campaign Conserve”.  To highlight  the research aspect of our work we offer two real opportunities to showcase new findings.   One is a new research symposium and the other an essay prize. Over the years they’ve covered places and people in Britain but have increasingly been international in outlook.

 [Entries welcome for this year – for details follow the links above. Closing date May 5th]

As I arrived at the posh hotel I was staying in [bargain winter break prices I hasten to add] I was reminded of  new work  from each of those forums.  At our 2015 conference we heard a paper about villa gardens on the Ligurian coast of Italy, and recently there was an essay prize entry on the  exotic  gardens created for new grand hotels along the French Riviera in the late 19th.   As it happens I wasn’t in either France or Italy although there is a strong French influence, as you will have realised if you’ve worked out who did the painting and inspired the pattern that was  on part of my  bedroom wall and ceiling.

The pattern on part of the wall and the ceiling

So…. today’s starter for 10 is, apart from guessing the artist, is to guess where I wrote the draft of this post   Continue reading →

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Barbie at the Botanics…

Posted on 02/03/2019 by The Garden History Blog

After last week’s rather serious post about emblematic gardens perhaps its time for something lighter so here’s the story of the surprise  I had last Thursday afternoon. I’m still not quite sure if it was one that caused more amusement than shock and horror, but you can judge that for yourself when I tell you I met Barbie and Ken and several of their friends.

Part of the surprise was because I was in the gardens of a beautiful 19thc villa in southern Spain, and part was because no-one else seemed to think it the slightest bit odd to have an iconic American toy used to interpret an historic Andalusian landscape.

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William Style and his garden…

Posted on 23/02/2019 by The Garden History Blog

William Style of Langley, unknown artist, 1636, Tate Britain

I used to think early 17thc portraits were rather dull and dreary, and in galleries would  generally walk past them rather fast. They had neither the austere simplicity of many early Tudor portraits, nor the flamboyant excesses of Stuart ones.  Of course I should have known better because when I began researching gardens of the period for my Ph.D I began to realise what I was missing.  Take this picture of William Style of Langley which is on display in Tate Britain.  At first sight its a portrait of  a well-dressed and presumably wealthy man, standing at the entrance to his house and looking out over an elaborately structural “green” garden.  And of course it can be read like that – but only superficially. Looking beyond the obvious reveals a lot more… especially the fact that pictures can be just as deceptive and complex as words. Continue reading →

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How Orchids became a Librarian’s Nightmare

Posted on 16/02/2019 by The Garden History Blog

Renanthera coccinea, the first orchid in Bateman’ collection.
photo from Flickr by Luiz Filipe Varella, 2017

It maybe a strange title but this is really the story of a rich young man and his passion for plants or rather one particular kind of plant.  James Bateman was the grandson and son of rich industrialists who had made their money out of  steam power, coal and iron. They owned mills and mines before moving into banks and land. All this meant  James did not have to lift a finger to be, and stay, rich, and that he could indulge his love of  plants.

His parents were keen gardeners at their home, Knypersley Hall in Staffordshire and even as a student at Oxford James was collecting and learning about plants. In particular he visited the nursery there of Thomas Fairburn who had been gardener to Joseph Banks. Fairburn introduced him to orchids:

“Of course, I fell in love at first sight, and as Mr. Fairburn asked only a guinea for his plant (high prices not yet in vogue), it soon changed hands and travelled with me to Knypersley, when the Christmas holidays began. I had caught my first orchid….”

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Visiting a Duke 18thc style…

Posted on 09/02/2019 by The Garden History Blog

At the end of last year I wrote  about the travel journals of John Byng, 5th Viscount Torrington. His diaries are, unlike most 18thc published writing, quite informal in style , probably because he  had no intention of putting his thoughts into print.  Whereas most of his contemporaries write of  the almost constant wars that form the background to this period or the political situation of the days, Byng  virtually  ignores such mundane matters.

John Byng by Ozias Humphry, 1796 from The Torrington Diaries

Instead he concentrates on  the English countryside and its people, enjoying himself as an interested observer of little details.  He describes the buildings, gardens  and landscapes he visited, and the people of all kinds  he met, and not always in the most flattering way.   Take for example his visits on what he called “A Tour in the Midlands” in 1789….

 

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