London is littered with royal societies – about thirty of them. The oldest is the Royal Society founded in 1663. The full name is the Royal Society of London for Improving Nature Knowledge. It’s royal because Charles II gave the society a royal charter written on vellum. (Charters and patronage are administered by the Privy […]
Let’s start in the south of the UK on the Isle of Wight where Queen Victoria and Prince Albert bought Osborne House in 1845 as a country retreat. They demolished the original property and built one in brick but rendered the house and terraces in concrete to make it look like stone. The concrete weathered […]
One thing you need to view a parterre garden is a high vantage point, possibly a drone. But back in 15th Century France, there were no drones or hot air balloons. What you probably had to go with your parterre garden was a nice big house with storeys and lots of acres of land. Parterre […]
The Versailles Orangerie was built between 1684 and 1686, before the palace was even begun. It housed a thousand trees in boxes, mostly citrus trees, but also olives, oleanders and palms. From May to October the plants were moved out into Parterre Bas to bask in the sunshine. (Imagine the effort carrying those trees in […]
Liverpool cotton merchant, Arthur Kilpin Bulley was one of fourteen children. Born in 1861, like many of his day, he followed the family business, which enabled him to travel and with a keen interest in unusual plants, he purchased 60 acres of land overlooking the Dee Estuary on the Wirral peninsula. There he established a […]
“You keep taking the first turning on the right. We’ll just walk around for ten minutes and then go and get some lunch.” These are the words of Harris in Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat as he leads a group of tourists into Hampton Court Maze and promptly gets them lost for […]
I touched on Landscape gardens with my post on Capability Brown. He wasn’t the only designer who had a habit of obliterating existing formal gardens and replacing them with picturesque landscapes. During the 18th century, the era of neoclassical architecture, estates were symbols of wealth and status. The grander, the better. The scale required new […]
In 2003 Kew Gardens, located in the borough of Richmond-on-Thames, was designated an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Better late than never, is all I can say. Once called Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, there has been gardens on the site since the 16th Century. That plural is due to the merging of two main gardens – […]
In 1857 Japan opened its borders to visitors, ending centuries of self-imposed isolation. The inquisitive went to visit and returned with new ideas on many subjects. At the age of twenty-four Josiah Conder, an English Architect, went to Japan in 1877 to teach. He was keen to learn about Japanese art and eventually went on […]
In 1862 Osgood Mackenzie started a garden from scratch on barren land. Nothing too remarkable about that. Except, the 850 hectare estate is in the Scottish Highlands, an area not exactly renown for fair weather. Osgood’s mum bought him the Inverewe estate. Very nice of her, but what about a garden? Shouldn’t all big estates […]
The Quiet Writer 