Gardening on the Edge:  Ireland’s Coastal Gardens and Demesnes

Terence Reeves-Smyth,
Senior Inspector of Built Heritage with the Environment and Heritage Service, Ireland

6.30 pm Wednesday 8 February,
The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street

Coastal gardens of the 17th and 18th centuries in Ireland were created in spite, rather than because of, their location.  Early attempts to plant successful shelter belts were not always successful and it was not until the 19th century that landowners began to successfully cope with the harsh and exposed conditions of coastal districts with their salt-laden winds. Success here was followed by a growing appreciation of the horticultural benefits of Ireland’s wonderfully mild (though wet) maritime coastal belt.  Gardens began to be intentionally sited to take advantage of its equable climate, as at Sir Peter Fitzgerald’s garden at Glanleam, Co. Kerry, which was begun in the 1830s. In subsequent decades a string of other famous coastal gardens were created, such as Rossdohan, the Garnish Islands, Derreen and Fota.  Today most of Ireland’s finest gardens lie within twelve miles of her coast.

Download the Boooking Form and Information Sheet
(includes all the five Lectures)

The Way Forward:
Gardening is Happiness

Elizabeth Banks,
President of The Royal Horticultural Society

10^th Annual GHS Lecture at the RHS

6.30 pm, Wednesday 15 February,  Royal Horticultural Halls & Conference Centre

In this lecture, Elizabeth Banks will talk about the plans for the future of the RHS, its international outreach, as well as her own work, particularly in relation to historic gardens, which over three decades has covered three continents.

Download the Booking Form and Information Sheet
(includes all the five Lectures)

Orchids: the Epitome of the Exotic

Christopher Bailes,
Curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden

6.30 pm, Wednesday 29 February,
The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street

Orchids have for centuries symbolised the exotic and mysterious. Their remarkable diversity in form and flower has attracted scientists and gardeners alike, and they were described by Darwin as ‘universally acknowledged to rank amongst the most singular and most modified forms in the vegetable kingdom’. During the heyday of orchid discovery and exploration their allure was, if anything, enhanced by their perceived intractability in cultivation. The 19th century, however, saw a revolution in growing techniques, leading to an explosion of interest in orchids. This presentation will review the history of orchid cultivation through the centuries to the present day, where orchids are now a staple supermarket flower.

Download the Booking Form and Information Sheet
(includes all the five Lectures)

An Historical Garden between Landscape and Architecture: A conservation project for the Renaissance Nymphaeum and the Tower in Palazzo La Marmora

Francesco Alberti La Marmora,
Landscape Section of Biella’s Observatory for Cultural Heritage and Landscape

6.30 pm, Wednesday 14 March,
The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street

The lecture will touch on the key concepts of the European Landscape Convention and its implementation over the last 10 years. It will look at the role of historic gardens in landscape conservation, particularly in the Piedmont region of Italy, taking as a starting point Palazzo La Marmora in Biella. This will be an account of how one individual has strived to conserve his own historic property within a system of institutional support which differs from that operating in the UK and how this has lead towards the conservation of other people’s historic gardens in his locality.

Download the Booking Form and Information Sheet
(includes all the five Lectures)

Study Day on John Evelyn
and the Sayes Court site
11am, Wednesday 25 April (exact timings still to be confirmed)

The Society, with London Parks and Gardens Trust, is planning an event to be held at the Linnean Society and the site of John Evelyn’s home at Sayes Court, Deptford.

Commemorating its former use and famous occupant would serve to highlight the threat that John Evelyn’s garden faces if the current outline planning application is approved for high density residential development, leading to further loss of vestiges of the site. Events are moving quickly but the Society could, by its preparation for such an event, bring attention to the planning authority that the site is held to be of national significance. Because of the short lead-in time, members are requested to keep an eye on our website and should expect to be notified by email, in the expectation that the Spring newsletter will not be able to give much notice of the event.

More details to follow.

Study Day at Studley Royal
in association with the AGT, Yorks GT & NT
9.45am to 4.30pm, Thursday 3 May

Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Gardens is a World Heritage Site. It is a landscape that many will be familiar with, but ‘improvement’ was not, and is not, a process with a finite end point. The importance of the gardens and park means that work of all kinds is on-going: research, archaeological excavations, restoration, conservation, management, interpretation. However well you think you know Studley, you will almost certainly discover something new during this study day.

The Neptune statue, centrepiece of the Moon Pond complex, Studley Royal. Picture by Tim Stewart, The Guardian

Morning talks will take place in the Aislabie Conference Suite in the Visitor Centre; after lunch, there will be guided tours of the water gardens.Speakers are Mark Newman, Archaeological Consultant, Yorkshire & the North-East, National Trust, on Digging in a garden: public archaeology, visitors and conservation at the Quebec; Michael Ridsdale, Head of Landscape at Studley, NT, on the practical implications of research, investigations and excavations (including the Quebec site) for management of the landscape; Dr Patrick Eyres, director of the New Arcadian Press, will reflect on the Quebec Monument and Neptune statue at Studley Royal and will consider the Georgian fashion for military and naval memorials as realised in Yorkshire gardens.

Cost: £39, including tea/coffee, sandwich lunch and guided tour of the water gardens. To book a place please complete the Booking Form, or email: AGT office or: 020 7251 2610.

GHS Annual Summer Garden Party
Tuesday 15 May

Further details in the spring…

Gardens and Literature
Rewley House, GHS/OCE Study Weekend
Friday 25 to Sunday 27 May

Our annual Oxford weekend (now held in the early summer) will investigate the interconnections of gardens and literature over a wide timescale, with consideration of how gardens are represented in literature and used as symbols and of how literature took form in, or influenced, gardens. A visit will be included.

Details from the Short Courses Administrator, OUDCE, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA or: 01865 270 380

Study Tour of Gardens in Bohemia and Moravia
Saturday 26 May to Saturday 2 June

Now fully booked

Our tour is to be led by Czech gardens expert Harriet Landseer. Harriet will lead a group from the GHS and the Friends of Czech Historic Buildings, Gardens and Parks on a tour of gardens in the Czech Republic.These will include in Moravia: the Liechtenstein estate of Lednice/Valtice with its extraordinary follies and early greenhouse (UNESCO); the preserved 17th century Italian garden at the Archbishop’s Palace in Kromeriz (UNESCO); the court-level Mannerist interiors and garden at Bucovice; the pretty formal gardens and impressive arboretum at Buchlovice. And in Bohemia: the Cesky Krumlov castle complex with Baroque gardens; Vlasim, the earliest landscape garden in the Czech Republic; and Kromeriz, where Franz Ferdinand laid out the rose garden. There will also be a day in Prague, where we hope to include the garden at the British Embassy.

Part of the Baroque gardens at Cesky Krumlov castle. Picture by Harriet Landseer

Harriet has lived in Prague on and off for the last 20 years, since moving there after graduating in art history from Yale. She specialises in the heritage and art of the Czech Republic and Central Europe, and has been accompanying and leading tours for museums and garden groups from the UK and USA for over 18 years.

She also works as a consultant to the National Heritage Institute, and did the English language version of their book, Castles, Country Houses and other Monuments. She is currently finishing a booklet for them on Historic Gardens.

Accommodation will be in good quality hotels: 4 nights in Brno, 2 in Cesky Krumlov and the last one in Prague. The price will be £895 per person based on shared twin accommodation.The single person supplement will be £265 per person.This includes all coach transport, bed and breakfast accommodation, 6 lunches and 6 dinners and the cost of site visits, but not the cost of the flight from London to Vienna and back again from Prague. There will be a non-returnable deposit fee of £100.

Now fully booked

AGM & Summer Conference 2012
at the University of Reading
Friday 13 to Sunday 15 July

There will be a 2nd Graduate Seminar on the Friday morning before the afternoon AGM. There will also be an optional extra garden visit on the Thursday afternoon.There will be a tour of the University of Reading’s Whiteknights campus as well as visits to a variety of gardens in the area.

A detail of Tom Stewart Smith's replanted Great Parterre at Trentham Water Gardens, one of the highlights of our 2011 Keele Conference. Picture by Charles Boot.

Full details and programme of this year’s conference will appear in the spring.

Study day at Yorkshire Sculpture Park:
Bretton Hall estate, C18–C21
AGT and Yorkshire Gardens Trust Study Day, in association with YSP and GHS
Friday 21 September

Following recent changes in the ownership of Bretton Hall, and after decades of divided management of the designed landscape, the whole has now been brought into the care of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. An ambitious project to open up access, and restore both natural and built features, has been embarked upon in 2011. The Study Day will trace the history of Bretton Hall, focusing on the major landscaping of the park in the mid- to late 1700s by Sir Thomas Wentworth (with Richard Woods); the period of Diana Beaumont’s expansion of the gardens in the early 1800s (together with head gardener Robert Marnock); the establishment in the 1970s of the sculpture park; and the historic landscape as a setting for contemporary sculpture.

Outclosure lies hidden in woodland in the outer reaches of the landscape; Andy Goldsworthy made some fantastic interventions in the Bretton Hall landscape in 2007. Picture by Charles Boot.

Talks in the morning will be followed by guided walks around the landscape after lunch.

For further information, please email the Co-ordinator at the AGT or: 020 7251 2610

You can download a partial copy of the YSP historic Landscape Management Plan here: it’s in 17 small parts and has some useful pictures, maps and plans. Good pre-symposium reading, though disappointing if you want any clues as to how the historic designed landscape is to be conserved and integrated with the YSP. This published section seems to be mainly aimed at conservation and protection of wildlife rather than the historic designed landscape which has been its home for the last 500+ years. Presumably the historic designed landscape and its features are covered in the 200+ pages not included here?

Alternatively you can download a brochure (also available on site) about the estate.

Study Tour to the Landscapes of California
Spring 2014

California contains some of the most beautiful and exciting gardens of the world. The influences are Mission, Spanish, Italian, modernist and, most recently, sustainability, but they are all quintessentially Californian, reflecting the diverse climates and landscapes of ocean, mountain and desert. California has always been a designers’ paradise.

Frederick Law Olmsted worked at the Universities of Stanford and Berkeley. After the first world war, the son of a gold rush speculator built Filoli in Beaux Art style.

In the 1920-30’s, Lockwood de Forest, Florence Yoch and others designed Mediterranean style estates in Santa Barbara, while Julia Morgan created swimming pools and cascades at the magnificent Hearst Castle.

The third successive (and biggest) outdoor swimming pool (there is also an indoor one) at Hearst Castle, built for William Randolph Hearst by Julia Morgan (his long term architect and collaborator on the unfinished project). Picture by Charles Boot.

In the 1940’s, Thomas Church was designing iconic modernist influenced gardens in San Francisco and Sonoma, while Ganna Walska began work on her Hollywood style Lotusland.

Mid-century, the population of California increased dramatically, and designers such as Eckbo, Halprin, Kiley and Royston, responded with innovative, modern designs for parks, campuses, and housing.

In recent years, a new generation of designers, mindful of the changing balance between urban and wild needs, has created public landscapes and private gardens both cutting edge and ecologically sustainable.

Streetscape planting near Venice Beach. If not strictly ecological, at least impressive. Picture by Charles Boot.

This ten-day tour, planned for spring 2013, will explore California landscapes and gardens, public and private, throughout the C20, edging into C21. To express interest, and receive more information please contact Liz Goodfellow