Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens
Harlow Town Park
7 September 2021
David Allen will be presenting the historic background of Harlow Town Park in the context of the new town movement and the work of Sir Frederick Gibberd and Dame Sylvia Crowe, its development and decline through the 1960s-80s and Allen Scott’s subsequent Heritage Lottery Funded restoration scheme. Alison Fox will talk about how the restored park was received, managed and what community involvement there has been since.
David Allen is a Director of Allen Scott Landscape Architects with over 30 years’ experience in a wide range of design and planning projects. Public park restoration projects include Robert Marnock’s Grosvenor and Hilbert Park, a number of James Pulham restorations notably the largest and first public park installation at Battersea Park, and at Worth Park. Other significant public spaces such as Reculver seafront and distinctive new parks in Lowestoft, Peacehaven and Crawters Brook have also been recognised achievements.
Alison Fox has over 30 years’ experience of working in the public sector in social housing, community participation and regeneration. For the past decade she has worked at Harlow Council and is currently a Regeneration Projects Manager. She was the Project Manager for the HLF funded regeneration of Harlow Town Park. Her role currently involves key regeneration projects across the town and delivering economic development related projects such as supporting skills provision for the residents of the town.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens
Park for a Young City
14 September 2021
Campbell Park is the jewel in the crown of the 1900ha park network of the new City of Milton Keynes. It is the result of close inter-professional working at all levels. Landscape Architect Neil Higson and Brian Salter, the first CEO of the Parks Trust, outline its design and management principles and discus how it is fulfilling its varied role as “the peoples’ park” for the developing city. They suggest that the parks and general landscape setting of Milton Keynes have been fundamentally important to its overall success at many levels.
Neil Higson studied Landscape architecture at Reading University under Frank Clark, he has lived and worked in three New Towns and developed a strong interest in public parks and the environment of public housing. In 1977 he formed the Central Landscape Unit as part of the Milton Keynes Development Corporation and one of the initiatives was the creation of Campbell Park.
Brian Salter has been involved with the maintenance and management of the new landscapes at Milton Keynes for 30 years since 1971 as Recreation Unit manager until 1972 when he was appointed CEO of the newly formed Parks Trust.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens
Stockley Park – From Landfill to Landscape
28 September 2021
As part of a large multidisciplinary team to transform the landscape from heavily contaminated landfill into a public park, golf course and a new style business park and to deliver this at speed, Bernard Ede of Ede Griffiths Partnership, describes this as a dream project. No waste material was removed from site, and this became the biggest scale of earthwork project in Europe, adopting an innovative approach to soil construction and handling methane. In the business park, surface water was regarded as a visual and ecological asset with the creation of lakes, swales and basins. Although the ownership of the business park has changed hands several times since, Claire Watson explains how the landscape is now used and regarded by the occupiers, providing a wealth of stunning areas for relaxation, exercise and biodiversity interest. She will also say what was missing from the original brief.
Bernard Ede studied Geography at Nottingham University and landscape architecture at Newcastle University, he worked on the 50 year development plan for China Clay; with Neil Higson at MKDC, and went on to establish Bernard Ede Associates and Ede Griffiths partnership in the early 1980s. His work has involved major landscape restoration and development projects throughout UK and Europe including Greenwich Peninsula Master Plan, Brandenburg Park Berlin, and city centre regeneration, Duisburg.
With over 15 years’ experience of providing enlivenment programmes, seven of which within the property management industry, Claire Watson is the lifestyle manager for Stockley Park. Amongst other things, she is involved with the relationship between landscape and occupiers, working with the team to evolve the outdoor spaces to allow occupiers and visitors to enjoy the benefits of being outside.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens
Broadwater Park
5 October 2021
The landscape setting, designed by Preben Jakobsen in the early 1980s, was for offices and a distribution warehouse for the National Water Council. Involved from the outset, Jakobsen was able to influence managing the contaminated land. The design includes an earthwork terrace framed by a circular hedge, a secret garden for the staff and car parking. Jakobsen developed a niche role designing high quality and distinctive landscapes for commercial companies, and a number of these projects were with Bill Pack of EPR. Karen Fitzsimon will explain this project, his considered selection and style of planting and how this project fits into Jakobsen’s oeuvre.
Karen Fitzsimon is a landscape architect, garden historian and horticulturalist. She co-curated the 2017 Gardens Trust symposium on post war designed landscapes, ‘Overlooked, Undervalued and At Risk?’ resulting in the 20+ sites added to the HE register. She is currently undertaking doctoral research at University of Westminster on the landscape practice of Preben Jakobsen.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens
Landscape at Cummins Engine Factory
12 October 2021
Defined as ‘very pure, very simple and very effective’ by John Winter, this rare landscape design in the UK is by influential American landscape architect Dan Kiley. Historic England describe the factory as ‘a classical temple of rusty brown steel and glass’. This was designed by Roche and Dinkerloo, and is set in Kiley’s landscape of lawns, a rectangular pool and with a ha-ha plus corten steel fence located inside the site boundary. The view from the road to the factory building is of a sweep of grass with just the top of the fence visible. Jane Amidon will discuss this design in the context of Kiley’s lengthy body of work. Matthew Benians will offer an insight to the landscape designed by James Hope at Cummins’ other UK factory at Shotts, Scotland.
Jane Amidon is professor of Landscape Architecture in the Northeastern University School of Architecture. She was a studio associate with Dan Kiley and co-authored with him the monograph of his work, she is currently writing a book examining the influences on Dan Kiley. She has also written other books including on Kathryn Gustafson.
Matthew Benians CMLI is a practicing landscape architect based in Glasgow and also a Scotland's Garden and Landscape Heritage Trustee. In 2018, with support from the LI Scotland, he established Sco.Mo. the Scottish Modernist landscape recording project with the aim of promoting the documentation, preservation and celebration of Scotland’s modernist landscape architectural heritage. The Cummins Engine factory in Shotts, Lanarkshire is one of the sites included on their list.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens
Cadbury Factory: a Landscape of Illusion and Metaphor
19 October 2021
Although Jellicoe designed much of the landscape to this factory site, the most ingenious and enduring part is the water feature that forms the boundary alongside a slip road mostly used by pedestrians on their way to and from the adjacent railway station. His design engages as much with pedestrians as with the factory staff. Ed Bennis has investigated the site and analysed its design over several years and come up with some surprising and subtle findings. What of its future though as a strip of public open space adjacent to a new road and housing?
Offering a longer view on iconic landscapes, Rob Belcher will provide some thoughts on another of Wirral’s historic sites - Birkenhead Park, one of the first public parks anywhere to be created by a municipal authority. As it approaches its official 175th birthday, it has experienced its own share of highs and lows, facing challenges about its value as a heritage asset in terms of significance, context, integrity, and authenticity. So, could it be a future World Heritage site?
Ed Bennis was Head of the School of Landscape at Manchester Metropolitan University and Head of the Centre for Landscape Research. He has been a landscape consultant to English Heritage and regional governments, and has held numerous positions on regional and national bodies including Green Flag Judge, CABE/Civic Trust, chairman and trustee of Cheshire Gardens Trust. He has been a visiting professor in Haifa, Beijing and Guangzhou, and University of Novi Sad, Serbia.
Rob Belcher is currently Birkenhead Park’s General Manager and, with his team, is seeking to realise the full potential of the Park in benefitting its local communities while recognising and conserving its special historic significance. Rob comes from a background in planning and landscape design. He is a Green Flag judge, and in recent years has managed the restoration of a couple of Thomas Mawson-designed public parks in The Potteries.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens
Recent Heritage – Reinvigorating a Modernist Landscape at Alexandra Road Park
2 November 2021
Neil Davidson will provide an introduction to the delicate restoration and reinvigoration of a modernist park at the renowned Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate in Camden. He will provide an insight into the discussions he had with the original Landscape Architect, Janet Jack, and review of her drawings and specifications from the late 1970’s which helped better understand why certain design decisions had been made and where she would have done things differently with the benefit of hindsight or a different brief.
Neil Davidson is a landscape architect and partner of J & L Gibbons and founding Director of the social enterprise Landscape Learn. He is a Built Environment Expert Panel member at the Design Council, a member of the International Scientific Committee, Masters of Landscape, Libria, Rome and chair of trustees of the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, host of the art and ecology project Phytology. He is a lecturer on the MA in Landscape Architecture course at the Bartlett, UCL.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens
Brunel Estate Landscape: Its Story (or part of it)
9 November 2021
Brunel Estate is probably the best remaining landscape of council housing that was designed and implemented by Michael Brown. In the early 1970s, the Michael Brown Partnership was one of the largest landscape practices in the UK, employing over 20 staff, and as Tom Turner has said, it ‘produced the best UK housing landscape designs of the 1960s and 1970s.’ Colin Moore will tell a very condensed and partial story of the project from pre-development to the present.
Colin Moore is a Landscape Architect and Urban Designer who has recently retired having worked in the landscape industry for 50 years. He was an associate of John Kelsey Associates for 6 years and then senior partner of Moore Piet + Brookes for 20 years before becoming an independent landscape consultant. Early in his career he worked for Michael Brown Partnership for a year (1973-74) as the Clerk of Works for one project and undertook site work for many other projects, including the Brunel Estate during construction. Colin is well known to many landscape architects for his 35 years teaching for the final professional exam and his expertise in construction and maintenance contracts and the CDM Regulations. He is chair of the JCLI Contracts Forum and secretary of FOLAR.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens
Golden Lane: Nothing of the Garden City
16 November 2021
Geoffry Powell won a competition in 1952 for a housing estate for key workers in the City of London and thus was formed the firm of Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, better known as the architects of Barbican next door. This earlier estate epitomises the best of 1950s architecture as its successor does that of the 1960s and the landscaping is equally imaginative. The tiny site, subsequently extended, was intensely urban, surrounded by dereliction and covered in rubble which, when removed, revealed deep Victorian basements. How Geoffry Powell treated the spaces between the housing blocks, and a rooftop, is an interesting study of an architect with an enthusiasm for landscape design rather than a landscape specialist.
Clem Cecil lived on Golden Lane Estate for ten years from 2010, and she says, every day was a privilege. It is a manifestation of the best aspects of modernism. Thanks to the architects' ingenious design approach, the units, even the small ones, feel spacious and full of light. There is an openness inherent in the design of the Estate - thanks to which there is an incredibly strong community. It is a harmonious and stimulating place to live, although management, overseen by the City of London, can be problematic, and alas the City doesn't have the same respect for the design integrity of the estate as many of its residents.
Elain Harwood is a senior architectural investigator with Historic England and undertook the organisation’s research on the post-war landscapes added to the Gardens Register in 2020. She is also the author of Chamberlin, Powell and Bon published by the RIBA with the Twentieth Century Society in 2011.
Clementine Cecil is an architectural historian, campaigner and writer. In the early 2000s she was Moscow Correspondent for The Times, and in 2004 co-founded the Moscow Architecture Preservation Society (MAPS) that published several reports about threatened heritage in Russian cities including Moscow, St Petersburg and Samara. She was Director of SAVE Britain’s Heritage, and SAVE Europe’s Heritage (2012-2016) and Pushkin House, London (2016-2020). She has recently finished a book about a wooden neoclassical city mansion in Moscow that will be published in 2022.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens
Riverside Living, Fresh Air and a Dan Dare Approach: Churchill Gardens
23 November 2021
Two young graduates from the AA won the competition to design Churchill Gardens after the Second World War. They looked to Germany for good examples of well-designed public housing and created a special place which, in turn, became an exemplar for others to follow. They were designing during the time of the space race which perhaps influenced the Flying Saucer playground, Accumulator Tower (using waste heat from Battersea Power Station) and their design for the Skylon at the Festival of Britain. The landscape setting of the estate is now on the register of parks and gardens to complement the listing of most of the buildings.
Jenifer White from Historic England will join Dominic to look at the protection of 20C landscapes through designation and some of the conservation challenges
Dominic Cole is a Landscape Architect and President of the Gardens Trust. He was the designer of the Eden Project, and now specialises in historic parks and gardens for which he has won many prestigious awards. Amongst other projects he has worked with National Trust on Chartwell, Wimpole and Sheringham, the impact of HS2 on Bucks landscapes, management plans for Hampstead Heath and played a vital role in the restoration of Jellicoe’s water gardens at Hemel Hempstead. His recent investigations include the historical development of the Gardens at The Temple, and the original designs for the landscape of Churchill Gardens in Pimlico.
Jenifer White is National Landscape Advisor at Historic England with England-wide responsibilities for historic parks and garden conservation planning policy, advice, research and standards.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens
Alton East and West: Contrasting Influences in Architecture and Landscape
30 November 2021
Portsmouth Road (now Alton East) and Roehampton Lane (Alton West) were the best sites left within the old county of London for post-war housing. The London County Council, under pressure from within and without, formed a new Housing Division in its Architect’s Department specially to develop them, and the architects also took responsibility for the landscaping. The two estates by two rival teams in the LCC Housing Division, are very different in style: the architects of Alton East had made extensive visits to Sweden, which inspired the form of the tower blocks, their layout and setting. By contrast Alton West retained and transformed the remains of a landscape by Capability Brown and superimposed a more formal architecture.
Elain Harwood is a senior architectural investigator with Historic England and undertook the research that underpinned the post-war landscape designations added to the Gardens Register in 2020. She is the author of Space, Hope and Brutalism (Yale 2015) and has written extensively on the work of the London County Council and its architects.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens
A People's Arcadia: The Ian Hamilton Finlay Garden at Luton
11 January 2022
The IHF garden at Stockwood, commissioned and funded by the local council, is a complete programme of sculptures designed by Ian Hamilton Finlay and complemented by planting by Bob Burgoyne, Master Gardener at the council and very much in sympathy with Finlay's vision. The site is not only in a public park, but also an 18th century parkland. The garden draws on the work of Claude Lorraine and the English Landscape Movement and is imbued with the classical world of deities drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses. This talk looks at the commissioning of the garden, its influences, other examples in Finlay's oeuvre and its importance, culminating with it being added to the Register in 2020 by Historic England at Grade II*. Luton Culture, who run the garden, have set up a small group to promote its rejuvenation with the help of HE and the speaker.
Kate Harwood has been involved with this garden for many years, researching and raising awareness of its significance. She is Conservation & Planning Officer of Hertfordshire Gardens Trust and a member of The Gardens Trust Conservation Committee. She has an MA in Garden History from Birkbeck and taught on their certificate course, and at ICE Cambridge for several years. She now lectures, writes and researches garden history as well as helping residents of Hertfordshire to protect and enhance our historic parks and gardens.
Regrettably for copyright reasons this video recording is not available for public viewing
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens: Public and Semi-Public Gardens
Roper’s Garden: a Meeting of Form, Function and Art
18 January 2022
Originally Sir Thomas More’s orchard in the early 16thC, this is a modern urban space built in the aftermath of WW2. The buildings on the site were destroyed in 1941 and it remained essentially derelict until the 1960s. Peter Shepheard developed a sensitive and understated design utilising the basements of the destroyed buildings to provide a sheltered and sunken garden. There are distinctive Shepheard elements such as path and kerb details often found in his other designs; a strong geometry of spatial form, and restrained planting of a knowledgeable plantsman. His love of nature, particularly birds, is seen in the bird boxes around the walls. Seating, shelter and ease of access are key functional elements. Shepheard uses All Saints Church as a focal point outside of the site, while centre-stage is The Awakening by Gilbert Ledward. An unfinished sculpture by Jacob Epstein lies hidden, awaiting to be discovered by visitors.
Ed Bennis was Head of the School of Landscape at Manchester Metropolitan University and Head of the Centre for Landscape Research. He has been a landscape consultant to English Heritage and regional governments, and has held numerous positions on regional and national bodies including Green Flag Judge, CABE/Civic Trust, chairman and trustee of Cheshire Gardens Trust. He has been a visiting professor in Haifa, Beijing and Guangzhou, and University of Novi Sad, Serbia.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens: Public and Semi-Public Gardens
The John F Kennedy Memorial: Stories from the Archives
25 January 2022
The huge Portland stone slab that forms the John F Kennedy Memorial was listed Grade ll in 1998. It is located on the fringe of a finger of woodland and set in an ‘acre of Runnymede’ on grazing land rising above the meadow. It is this, the rest of the site that was recently added to Historic England’s register, although it is surely hard to find a design that is not more integrated with its landscape. The JFK Memorial soon became a celebrated landscape design, it was significant to Jellicoe’s career, and it has continued to attract widespread interest and praise. Like one of the swans gliding on the Thames below, however, many feet have paddled hard to help both create and keep this designed landscape sublime, and Annabel Downs will tell some of the stories that are part of its history.
In her capacity as Secretary to the Kennedy Memorial Trust, Annie Thomas liaised between the Kennedy Trustees and the National Trust as they cared for Jellicoe’s memorial ‘in landscape and stone’ at Runnymede. As an administrator, albeit with a rural heart and heritage, she describes her working relationship with those employed by the National Trust to care for the whole of the Runnymede site and some of the issues they had to contend with in relation to the Kennedy Memorial.
Annabel Downs is a landscape architect and garden designer; she unexpectedly helped to establish the Landscape Institute archive following the gift of a plan chest full of drawings from Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe. She is currently chair of FOLAR and as part of a growing band of enthusiasts, we are helping to raise public awareness about the many qualities of C20 landscape design and their industrious creators.
Annie Thomas read English at Bristol University in the early 1970s. After almost thirty years bringing up a family of four and supporting her husband in inner-urban Anglican parishes, she found herself in paid employment at Goodenough College in a multi-faceted role with international postgraduate students in London and was subsequently Secretary to the Kennedy Memorial Trust from 2007 until 2019.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens: Public and Semi-Public Gardens
Arne Jacobsen and the 'Total Design’ of St Catherine’s College, Oxford
1 February 2022
Having written books on the gardens of both universities, Tim Richardson describes St Catherine’s (universally known as St Catz) as the premier modernist exercise among the Oxbridge colleges. In this talk he describes the genesis of the design and Jacobsen’s uncompromising approach to every detail. The design is unusual in that Jacobsen oversaw both building and landscape in a spirit of complete equality, lending the whole a balance and seamlessness which is rare indeed. Nevertheless, our speaker has certain reservations about the result, in terms of its fitness for purpose as a college and as a home for students.
Tim Richardson is a garden and landscape historian and critic and the author of a number of books including The Arcadian Friends: The Invention of the English Landscape Garden, Avant Gardeners and The New English Garden, as well as books on the gardens of both Oxford and Cambridge. He is a columnist on the Daily Telegraph, art critic for The Idler magazine and formerly gardens editor at Country Life. He teaches landscape history at London University and wrote Oxford University's course on English garden history. He is founder-director of the Chelsea Fringe Festival.
Regrettably for copyright reasons this video recording is not available for public viewing
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens: Private Housing Landscapes
Fieldend, Teddington (1961), a Span Housing Development: an International Context
15 February 2022
When a group of young, well-informed and idealistic architect-designers and developers founded Span in the early 1950s their vision was to 'span the gap between the suburban monotony of the typical speculative development and the architecturally designed, individually built residence that has become (for all but few) financially unattainable’. It set out to create an inspiring environment and provide an alternative way of life that promoted a community spirit. While the British context of this has been well explored in Barbara Simms's Eric Lyons and Span (2006), by selecting one of their developments at Fieldend, Jan Woudstra compares and contrasts some selected international theories and examples regarding landscapes for housing, and the way they foresaw design for community development. This is contrasted with some remarks on present-day housing.
James Strike will discuss how the landscape of Fieldend influences the way residents of the estate live and interact. As there are 51 houses, there are invariably various opinions as to how the landscape is managed and what is planted. He will talk of the joys and benefits of living at Fieldend; how the layout and landscape led to everyone knowing each other, how it encourages children to play safely and the many community events of garden parties, music recitals, croquet and carol singing. James will also speak about the conflicts which arise, such as the size of the trees, children's toys, the need for more colour, and the extent of meadow grass.
Jan Woudstra is a landscape architect and historian who has taught in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield since 1995. His PhD at UCL explored the modernist landscape design and theory in five different countries, and concentrated particularly on the landscape associated with the home. He has published widely, not just concentrating on landscape modernism.
James Strike is a retired architect having worked in private practice and at English Heritage. He has lived with his wife at Fieldend for twenty years. James has written several books including: Architecture in Conservation: Managing Development at Historic Sites, and the spirit of span housing.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens: Private Housing Landscapes
A Water Garden and its lost Landscape Architect
22 February 2022
When trying to understand the history of the tiny courtyard at the Sanderson Hotel, Dominic Cole found out the planting had been designed by Philip Hicks and that another of his schemes was the water gardens in Edgware Road, so had to visit - it was a revelation to discover this remarkable landscape of levels, planes, water and delightful planting. The use of space, textures and light was amazing. Attempts to ‘update‘ paving and planting have begun to erode the simplicity and beauty of the original design.
Jan Woudstra shows that the Water Garden at Burwood Place was part of a movement that saw its roots in the 19th century re-imagination of the ‘Hanging Gardens of Babylon’. These iconic gardens were also a starting point as techniques improved, with the use of concrete and steel, for roof gardens. In the 20th century they were used as a reference to platform gardens, most famously in the raised decks of the architecture of futuristic cities. But what did these decks set out to do? What kinds of environments were envisaged? Burwood Place is but one of a whole series of responses. What was the intention here and what can we learn about life as it was supposed to be lived? What has happened since it was completed, with our perspective on how life is to be lived, and with this garden as a result? How can this garden be read today?
Cristina Refolo will provide an introduction to the restoration and rejuvenation of The Water Gardens, the design ethos, and the decisions made during the design process. Cristina will be talking about the rediscovery of the original relationship between the planters and the pond, and the intrinsic connection between the water and the concrete, which makes The Water Gardens a much more innovative and technologically advanced scheme than expected. In 2020 the restored scheme was presented with the Susdrain/Criria SuDS Small Scale Retrofit Award and The Landscape Institute Excellence in Horticulture and Planting Design Award.
Dominic Cole is a Landscape Architect and President of the Gardens Trust. He was the designer of the Eden Project, and now specialises in historic parks and gardens for which he has won many prestigious awards. Amongst other projects, he has worked with National Trust on Chartwell, Wimpole and Sheringham, the impact of HS2 on Bucks landscapes, management plans for Hampstead Heath and played a vital role in the restoration of Jellicoe’s water gardens at Hemel Hempstead. His recent investigations include the historical development of the Gardens at The Temple, and the original designs for the landscape of Churchill Gardens in Pimlico.
Jan Woudstra is a landscape architect and historian who has taught in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield since 1995. His PhD at UCL explored the modernist landscape design and theory in five different countries, and concentrated particularly on the landscape associated with the home. He has published widely, not just concentrating on landscape modernism.
Cristina Refolo is a landscape architect and founding Director of Refolo Landscape Architects. She is appointed to the High Street Task Force for the stormwater management and biodiversity sector and regularly lectures on the subject of SuDS for the Landscape Architecture MA course at the University of Greenwich, London
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens: Private Gardens
The Beth Chatto Gardens, Past, Present and Future
8 March 2022
Who was Beth Chatto and what inspired her to create a series of gardens and a perennial plant nursery? David Ward has been working at these gardens for 38 years, and has witnessed and been hands on shaping the growth and development of the different garden zones - from wet to dry, open to exposed. How will the character and dynamics of this garden continue without its original maker? What difference does it make to this garden having it on Historic England’s register?
Dr Chris Gibson states that Beth’s mantra of ‘Right Plant, Right Place’ is not just about the practice of gardening plants. It is also reference to the network of beneficiaries of the right plants in the right places – insects, birds, mammals, indeed the whole spectrum of biodiversity. All gardens support wildlife, but some are better than others, and he believe because of the steps we have taken towards sustainability, this garden is better than most. This talk will look at some of the wildlife surprises in our garden, and the steps we have taken to improve it still further.
David Ward is the Garden and Nursery Director at The Beth Chatto Gardens and Trustee of the Beth Chatto Education Trust. He trained at the Norfolk College of Agriculture and Horticulture and Merrist Wood College, studying nursery practice and worked on various wholesale and retail nurseries in the UK and Holland. He joined Beth in 1983 and became Propagation Manager. He assisted at four Chelsea Gold Medal exhibits and recently contributed extra chapters to reprints of Beth Chatto’s Drought-resistant planting, Beth Chatto’s Woodland Garden and The Green Tapestry revisited.
Dr Chris Gibson is an experienced naturalist who worked his whole career in the statutory wing of nature conservation. Since taking early retirement, he has continued to promote wildlife, especially in Essex, and for the past year has been proud to act as the Beth Chatto Gardens Wildlife Advocate, advising and enthusing staff and visitors alike of the biodiversity riches to be found in a sustainably managed garden: showing the world what is possible is an important step to changing hearts and minds.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens: Private Gardens
Saving Denmans
15 March 2022
In 1980 John Brookes moved to Denmans, a West Sussex property that became not only his home but also his garden design school and experimental garden. The first part of this talk details the early history of the nineteenth-century site, once the home of the Denman family, and then the development of a market garden and later an ornamental garden by the Robinsons in the early post-war decades. Mrs Robinson’s innovative gravel garden formed the basis of Brookes’s garden, which introduced a stronger design, a pool to culminate the dry gravel streams and additional native and exotic plants. These experiments paralleled the design and planting concepts used in his clients’ gardens and those he outlined in articles, lectures and his books. In the four years before Brookes’s death in March 2018, Denmans went through a critical and potentially high-risk period. The second part of this talk focuses on the efforts to restore the garden starting in December 2017, how these efforts evolved after Brookes’s death and, looking to the future, what historic resources will be used to help create a conservation plan for the future.
Dr Barbara Simms is a garden and landscape historian, who has been Course Director of the MA in Garden and Landscape History at the Institute of Historical Research since its inception in 2014. She was chair of London Parks & Gardens Trust (2002-8), a trustee of The Garden Museum (2002-14), and chair of Parks & Gardens UK (2012-18). She has been editor of Garden History, the journal of The Gardens Trust (previously the Garden History Society) since 2004. Dr Simms’s interest in the history, conservation and interpretation of gardens of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries has led to the completion of research commissions on post-war landscapes, journal articles and the publication of two books, Eric Lyons and Span (2006) and John Brookes, Garden and Landscape Designer (2007).
Gwendolyn van Paasschen is a garden designer and writer. Having worked with John Brookes on a major multi-year project in Upstate New York, she helped him write his memoir, A Landscape Legacy (Pimpernel Press, 2018), and now is chairman of the John Brookes-Denmans Foundation (JBDF) which she co-founded in 2017. The JBDF is dedicated to perpetuating John Brookes’s design legacy and to the renovation and preservation of Denmans Garden, his garden in West Sussex. She currently owns and runs Denmans Garden, which includes a plant centre and retail space. She is also a contributor to the Georgetown Dish, a daily news and entertainment site, writing occasional articles about gardening and garden design. Ms van Paasschen has compiled and edited How to Design a Garden, a forthcoming book of writings by John Brookes, published by Pimpernel Press (October 2021).
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens: Private Gardens
York Gate Garden - the Spencer Legacy
22 March 2022
The history of York Gate begins in 1951 when the Spencer family bought a 6-acre farm on the edge of Leeds, and now its current status is as one of the finest post-war small gardens in the country. Ben will share his philosophies on the importance of moving the garden forward while being true to its origins and the spirit of place. Once a family garden that opened occasionally for the National Garden Scheme to a busy garden open 5 days a week. He will look at how the garden has evolved to deal with these challenges. A wonderful Arts and Crafts style-garden that has become a Yorkshire treasure. Every garden needs skilled people to maintain and nurture it and one of the group of volunteers is Meg Morton, she will tell us what it is about this garden that first attracted her and what keeps her here.
Ben Preston has a passion for people and plants led Ben towards a career in horticulture. He has been Head Gardener at York Gate for just over 4 years. After studying Horticulture and Plant Science at Nottingham Trent University, undertaking a traineeship at Audley End in Essex and working in gardens around the country including Great Dixter, he has settled back in Yorkshire. His interest in historic gardens and innovative plant design is pushing York Gate forward while being true to its origins.
Meg Morton studied horticulture and plantsmanship as a second career. After visiting York Gate garden while at college, she decided that when she finished her studies she would volunteer there, and this she has done.
Why so Special? Insights into 21 iconic post war designed and listed landscapes and gardens: Private Gardens
The Garden at Shute House
29 March 2023
The garden of Shute House on the Wiltshire / Dorset border is one of the best known of Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe’s private commissions and regarded by many as his finest work. He worked there for almost 25 years.
The garden is divided into a series of spaces, but water is the defining element. Fundamental to the design was the splitting of the water into two separate courses of contrasting characters, one formal and one more natural.
The garden is renowned because of its designer, but it was truly a collaboration with his clients. Michael and Anne Tree shaped the original design more than has been previously acknowledged and this talk focuses on Anne Tree’s contribution in particular.
Dr Kate Feluś is a historian specialising in gardens and their social history. For over twenty years she has been a consultant researching and advising on the restoration of historic and C20 parks and gardens, for both public and private owners.
Her book The Secret Life of the Georgian Garden, (2016) explains how the Georgians lived in the great landscapes of Capability Brown and others, enjoying banquets, boating and amorous liaisons in the shrubberies. The Times declared it to be ‘a pioneering work and an important addition to the literature of the country house. More than that it is a thoroughly entertaining read.’
Kate is currently writing a book for Yale University Press about the remarkable women who’ve created British gardens through history and the great garden designers they joined forces with.
Regrettably for copyright reasons this video recording is not available for public viewing