GTNEWS 12 Spring 2020 Research • Conserve • Campaign Front cover image: Found object sculpture in the garden at Prospect Cottage c.1990 © Howard Sooley. Once again The Garden Museum has kindly provided us with a cover image to celebrate their early summer exhibition and our joint lecture there, to be given by Michael Charlesworth, GT see pp.32 & 39. NEWS 12 Spring 2020 Join Us If you or someone you know is not a member, please join us! Contents Your support is vital to helping the Gardens Trust to protect and David Marsh at the back of his shed 4 campaign for historic designed landscapes. Benefits include News and Campaigns GT News, our journal Garden Unforgettable gardens celebration 5 History, and access to exclusive Our Business Plan for 2020 5 member events. A special rate is Sharing Repton: a few final thoughts 7 available to County Garden Trust Essay Prize and New Research Symposium 10 Volunteer of the Year Award 11 members. Join today at: Garden History Grapevine courses 12 thegardenstrust.org/support-us/ From our contributors Glasshouses at Risk, Tatton Park 14 Painshill joins Wörlitz 16 The Petersfield Physic Garden 17 Repton watercolour of Rivenhall Place 18 The ‘real’ Secret Garden 19 Researching Hunsdonbury 20 Picturesque landscapes around the Clyde 22 The Vale of Aylesbury and Rex Whistler 26 www.thegardenstrust.org In memoriam Peter Hayden 28 The Gardens Trust head office: 70 Cowcross Street, Ray Desmond 29 London EC1M 6EJ Bill Tomlins 29 phone: 020 7608 2409 Peter Lindesay 30 general email: [email protected] Company number: 03163187 other events & news in brief 31 Registered Charity number: 1053446 GT Events 37 Annual Conference, New Research Symposium and Annual General Meeting 2020 42 Copy deadline for Summer 2020 Copy deadline for Summer issue 13 We’re looking for new Volunteers 45 1 June 2020 for distribution Officers 46 in July 2020 Events Diary 47 David Marsh at the back of his shed ’ve been plotting out the next weavers to act as Ifew months on the blog, and haymakers in a kind looking for subjects that have of human zoo, so that proved popular both with readers she could watch them but equally importantly with me “from the east window to research and write. One thread in the eating room … which always seem to go down well [making] the prettiest is eccentricity, and I sometimes perspective scene wonder whether to be a great imaginable… I love gardener or design a great garden to see that they eat actually requires more than just a as well as labour, and Detail from ‘The Montagu Family at Sandleford Priory’, streak of quirkiness. Whether it’s often send a treat.” Berkshire, by Edward Haytley, 1744. on a grand scale like Frank Crisp At times the quest to at Friar Park, or Charles Isham do something different at Lamport or on a smaller scale almost becomes a George Durant who built a giant competition to see Egyptian pyramid for his poultry, who can do the daftest there’s something refreshingly sounding things and light-hearted about taking succeed rather than conventions and pushing them in a becoming a laughing new direction or to their limits. stock. Surely top of That could mean pushing the the list for that must planting limits as at Abbotsbury, be Sir John Soane with its subtropical look and who created a set of feel. It could mean playing with archaeological ruins ‘traditional’ planting style as in in the grounds of Birds eye view of Pitzhanger, the ruins on the right, 1832. the new Collector Earl’s garden at his country house at Arundel where the tulips take on Pitzhanger which he then buried contender in this area must surely a life of their own, the stumpery for future generations to excavate? be Robert Gauen an early-19th- is exotic and the garden buildings Even though they were largely century Southampton nurseryman. and stage effects of features like swept away by later owners it was In an age of innovation — lawn the floating crown — a wonderful probably more successful than mowers, hosepipe and the take on the Jacobean inspiration the creation of a concrete Never- Wardian case — he invented behind the whole thing. What Never land in the cliffside public two of the most impractical [and are Biddulph Grange and gardens at Southend, now sadly to our eyes probably the most Northumberlandia if not master vandalised ruins waiting for the pointless] gadgets imaginable. classes in eccentricity? And if local council to find the money to But I can’t help loving his obvious they don’t grab your attention sweep them away. enthusiasm. who could resist Lady Dorothy In the intellectual eccentric If you don’t know what I’m Nevill’s orchestra of pigeons stakes I wondered about awarding talking about just go to the Blog at Dangstein? Or maybe you the top spot to George Glenny and do a quick word search on prefer the mechanical elephants with his regulations for dahlias any or all of them and be amazed. at Morecambe or the man so and other florists flowers, which And finally I’m on the lookout for obsessed with tomatoes that he despite running contrary to what even more eccentricities to amuse grows over 600 varieties in a one might imagine to be the laws myself, and hopefully the Blog’s historic walled garden in France? of nature actually succeeded in readership too so if you can think How about the ‘bluestocking’ altering the world’s view of how of any get in touch: gardener who took on unemployed flowers should look. The other [email protected] 4 GT NEWS 12 Spring 2020 news & Our Business Plan for 2020 his time last year I reported campaigns Ton the adoption of a revised Gardens Trust Business Plan. The plan has to be reviewed every year, and the review for 2020 took place at December’s Board meeting. The agreed objectives set for 2020 are: • To build on the campaign launched in 2019 to attract new members and to encourage members of County Garden Trusts (CGT) to become individual members of the Trust; • To publicise the work of the Trust to landscape architects, garden designers, and other professional bodies concerned with garden and landscape history and conservation to It’s time to be Unforgettable! seek to enlarge and widen the membership of the Trust; rom 2020 to 2022 the Gardens under threat, write the story of • To build up a database of the FTrust will be celebrating a lost garden that will never be contact details of all members, Unforgettable Gardens – what forgotten, host an exhibition of of CGT members, and of other they mean to us, the threats they old garden photographs, offer a interested bodies who wish to face, and how you can help save memorable outing for families to receive information from the Trust; them for future generations. a public park they may not have • To give greater prominence to Historic parks and gardens visited before, or put together a the work of the Trust as statutory are a much-loved part of our volunteer group to help look after consultee in relation to planning shared national story, but these your local threatened landscape. applications affecting the unforgettable gardens are at The Unforgettable Gardens landscape, to work with County risk. Gardens and landscapes celebration is what you make it! Garden Trusts in responding to have always been vulnerable to As this collaborative celebration such applications, to bring to the destruction through neglect, starts to take shape, we are hosting attention of planning authorities development or mis-management. a brainstorm at The Gallery, 70 their duty to notify the Trust of Now these precious treasures are Cowcross Street in London from relevant applications, and to seek to more at risk than ever, as austerity 1.30 to 4.30pm on Thursday 16 ensure that this duty is carried out; leads to maintenance cuts and April (see p.38) for anyone who • To work with the Royal pressures on land for housing is interested in getting involved Horticultural Society, Lindley increase. The Gardens Trust is on a and would like to discuss their Library on a joint venture under mission to rescue them. ideas or possibilities. Please email: the title ‘Unforgettable Gardens’. There is a myriad of ways you [email protected] It will focus on gardens and could contribute. For example, to book your place. landscapes that have been lost or you could organise an event More details on our website: are at risk, the work that is being that highlights a phenomenal thegardenstrust.org/campaigns/ done by the Trust and County but vulnerable garden, support You can also follow what Gardens Trusts to protect them, your County Gardens Trust is happening on Twitter: and the ways in which people in conserving local landscapes #unforgettablegardens. can get involved in this work. GT NEWS 12 Spring 2020 5 news and campaigns The venture will be launched in we will be launching in 2020 and run through to 2022; conjunction with the Royal • To make an application to Horticultural Society’s the National Lottery Heritage Lindley Library. Fund for financial support for We must increase our an audience development and membership and widen our capacity building project to membership basis. It is not complement our ‘Unforgettable just a matter of encouraging Gardens’ celebration; members of County Garden • To support Historic England’s Trusts to become individual Heritage Information Access members of the Gardens programme by the provision of Trust, although this is an training for County Gardens essential objective.