THE London GARDENE R O R The Gardener’s Intelligencer For the Year Volume the twenty-third Journal of the London Hi oric Parks and Gardens Trust The London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust Duck Island Cottage, S t James’s Park L (Price TEN Pounds, Free to Members) The London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust is an independent charitable trust whose obje ive is to promote education about historic parks and gardens in London, and to seek to conserve and enhance these gardens for the education and enjoyment of the public. The Trust was established in 1994 . The Trust aims to draw together a wide range of knowledge, expertise and interested professionals, amateurs, individuals, organisations and societies within London; to promote proje s, influence decisions on the protection and management of historic garden land, and to provide a valuable centre for the education, information, research and creative projects for the improvement and conservation of London’s extensive fabric of historic gardens, for the benefit of everyone. Editor of The London Gardener Todd Longstaffe-Gowan Editorial Assistance from Sally Williams Layout by Mette Heinz and Sally Williams For further information on the Trust please conta The Secretary The London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust Duck Island Cottage, c/o The Store Yard St James’s Park, London sw1a 2bj Telephone 020 7839 3969 www. londongardenstrust.org Correspondence concerning The London Gardener should be addressed to The Editor, Avenue House , 20 Church Street, Ampthill, Bedfordshire mk45 2eh The London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust is registered in England no. 2935176 Registered Office: Duck Island Cottage, St James’s Park, London sw1a 2bj. Registered Charity no. 1042337 This issue of The London Gardener Has been made possible through the generosity of The Aldama Foundation Notes for Contributors Contributions submitted for publication in The London Gardener should be typed double spaced on a4 size paper, leaving a margin of at least 30 mm on the left. Sheets should be numbered consecutively at the top right hand corner. Only one copy of the article is required. Illustrations should be supplied as high resolution digital images (minimum 300 dpi ). References to illustrations should be included. Captions should be noted on a separate sheet, and should include credits to photographers and any acknowledgement of source. Permission to reproduce illustrations and reprodu ion fees are the responsibility of the contributor. Notes - where applicable - should be numbered consecutively throughout and typed on a separate sheet. Contributors are advised to consult the mrha Style Book over questions of style. All material published by The London Gardener is copyright and may not be reproduced in any form without consent of the Editor. The Editor’s policy is to allow his contributors to pursue their own inclinations, unrestrained. The opinions of the authors do not necessarily reflect those of the Council of Management of the Trust. Copyright © 2019 The London Gardener. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Printed by Henry Ling Limited The Dorset Press 90 Prince of Wales Road Dorchester Dorset dt1 1hd issn 1361-4355 P R E F A C E The title of the present publication is based upon the second edition of Thomas Fairchild’s The City Gardener (1722), which appeared in c. 1760 . The author claimed his book contained ‘the most experienced methods of cultivating and ordering such ever-greens, fruit trees, flowering shrubs, flowers, exotic plants, &tc . as will be ornamental, and thrive be in London gardens’. Fairchild (1677-1729) , who e ablished a nursery business at Hoxton in the Ea End in the 1690 s, was the fir learned and influential proponent of improved town gardening, and his book The City Gardener was the fir publication by a celebrated London flori , nurseryman and botani dedicated to the ornamental culture, treatment and improvement of ‘little town gardens in London’. The general format and ru ure of The London Gardener is derived from near contemporary publications, including the Spe ator and The Gentleman’s Magazine. For 2019 Containing More in Quantity , and greater Variety , than any Book of the Kind and Price. 1. A Dream of a London Garden Square by C. Paul Christianson ................................................................................................... 11 11. John Busch in London by Michael Symes ............................................................................................................ 22 111. ‘Rebel Gardening’ by The Perambulator .... .................................................................................................. 30 1v. Evidence from The Keep Records - Humphry Repton and John Nash at Southgate Grove by Alun Coonick ......... ...................................................................................................... 35 v. Fanny Wilkinson - London’s Landscape Gardener by Elizabeth Crawford ............. ....................................................................................... 48 v1. Here We Go Round the Bethnal Green Mulberry by The Gentle Author ............................... ...................................................................... 64 v11. From the Speaker’s Garden: Repton’s designs on Westminster by Stephen Daniels ........ ................................................................................................... 74 v111. Transforming Gunnersbury’s Gardens 1660-1760 by Val Bott, with James Wisdom ..... ............................................................................... 85 The Index to Volumes i – xxii of The London Gardener is available at www.thelondongardener.org.uk THE LONDON GARDENER or The Gardener’s Intelligencer Vol no. For the year In addition to his extensive landscaping shrub to Germany and Russia, as well as doing and gardening at Tsarskoye Selo, Busch may the same in English gardens. But all this have had a hand in Pavlovsk, where the stemmed from his time in London. architect was Charles Cameron, who married Busch’s daughter. He worked at Gatchina from 1779 to 1783 , and spent a further six years in Russia before returning home. He was * * * * * * replaced by his son Joseph. It is not known whether John Busch had any involvement with what was now firmly established as Loddiges Acknowledgements nursery, which by 1789 had far outshone his own; he was also nearing 60 and had endured I am greatly indebted to Todd Longstaffe-Gowan 18 years of arduous toil in an alien country with and Marcus Köhler for their considerable an often inhospitable climate, so he was assistance in compiling this article unlikely to be seeking a demanding full-time and also to Mark Laird, Chris Sumner position. Nonetheless he retained property in and Sally Williams Hackney. He settled with his second wife Mary at Busch House, Isleworth, which now survives as part of The Green School for Boys, in the north-west corner of the Syon Park estate (figs. 11 & 12) .17 His name is commemorated at Busch Corner, where ‘Rebel Gardening’ Twickenham Road meets the London Road; By The Perambulator by Busch Close near to the school; and by John Busch House, a modern block at 277 , London n The London Gardener #20 , your Road. He is thus regarded as a most correspondent was indignant at a new di inguished former resident. At Isleworth he Iaddition to the typology of public parks started a new chapter in the story of John and gardens: ‘privately owned public space’ or Busch in London (today Greater London, but, ‘POPS’, increasing in number in the capital at the time, very much in the swim of out-of- and in other major towns and cities around the town gardening). He continued to do some UK. 1 POPS are chara erised by a high degree work at Syon, introducing the Grey Alder of cleanliness, but also the presence of private (Alnus incana) into Britain, together with the security guards: no ball games, no barbeques, flowering currant (Ribes diacantha) and the no buskers. shrubs Caragana jubata and Rhododendron Perhaps the most egregious of these chrysanthemum .18 However, his reputation was unsettling places – so like a public park yet so marred at Syon by being accused of negle ing definitely not one – was never actually built. the orange trees. He died in 1795 and was Boris Johnson’s folly, the Garden Bridge buried in the parish churchyard at Isleworth. down ream from Waterloo Bridge, would not John Busch was a multi-talented man have been a public space but a private one, not with an international reputation. His tangible a public right of way but a permissive one. memorials are his gardens in Russia, but his There would have been strict controls on great achievements were to promulgate the aivities, regular closures for income- landscape garden on the continent and to generating events and ticketed entry for introduce hitherto unused species of tree and groups of more than eight people. 17 . In 1938 the house and grounds became Busch House Open Air How refreshing therefore, two years on School, which catered for pupils aged 5 to 16 . Over the next decades, from his successor finally pulling the plug on the school changed its name a number of times, becoming John Busch School, which catered for 12 to 16 year olds, and by the early Boris’s bridge in 2017 , to see a new public 1990 s it was Syon Park School. It eventually closed as a school in space, in the great tradition