6th GHS Annual Essay Prize

The Garden History Society has launched its Sixth Annual Essay Prize, with a new, later entry date to enable students to work on their submissions over the Easter holidays.  This year’s entries can be submitted up to and including 30 April 2010.  The prize is open to any student registered in a bona fide university or institute of higher education, or any student who has graduated from such an institute in the past twelve months.

Submissions must be 5000–6000 words and the only restriction on subject matter is that it must be of relevance to garden history.  The prize was established to encourage vibrant, scholarly research and writing and these qualities are reflected in the winning entries.  Last year’s winner, Judith Preston, presented Thomas Wright as A Polymath in Arcadia.  Two other entries were highly recommended: Janet Davidson Carter’s study of Birkenhead Park which explored the class implications of the park’s development, and Helen Lawrence’s study of Thomas Archer’s garden making.   Previous winning essays have encompassed an explanation of Wilton’s Rainbow Fountain, an examination of the garden in a seventeenth-century masque, the exposition of a lost eighteenth-century royal garden and the role of gardens in the nineteenth-century treatment of mental illness.

The prize includes a cheque for £250 (to be awarded at the GHS Annual Summer Garden Party), free membership of the society for a year and consideration for publication in the peer-reviewed, scholarly journal Garden History.  All previous winners have been accepted for publication and often the best of the non-winning entries are invited to submit to the journal; several entries from last year’s competition are currently in preparation for publication in forthcoming issues.  Previous winners are also making waves in the field of garden history; 2007 winner Paige Johnson went on to receive a coveted Robert Adam travel bursary to further her research on the Art Deco garden, while 2005 winner Dr Clare Hickman is now working as a research fellow at Bristol University where she is administering Dr Tim Mowl’s Leverhulme Trust funded project to chart England’s historic gardens and landscapes.

Download the Entry Form and Rules for Submissions

The Essay Prize is supported by NFU Mutual