The Art and Craft of Garden Making: From the English Landscape Garden to the 21st-Century Garden Plot
In 1838 John Claudius Loudon described the garden as “a work of art and a scene of cultivation”. The relative importance of, and the relationship between, these two facets of garden making, aesthetic and practical, are the source of constant discussion and disagreement among the makers of gardens before and after Loudon. Throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries and into the twenty-first century, the seemingly gentle art of garden design has been the subject of often heated disputes.
This seminar traces the evolution of the English garden from the cloistered retreats of the Middle Ages through vast expanses of eighteenth-century English landscape gardens. It then continues on to the technological advances and astonishing plant introductions which stimulated newly wealthy industrialists in the nineteenth century, the reactionary Arts and Crafts garden, and finally the modest "everyone" suburban garden of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. We look at the influences which shape garden design—in the arts, science, technology, philosophy, and politics—and at the changing perceptions of nature, art and design which lead to the evolution of the garden as perhaps England’s greatest contribution to the world of art. Special attention is paid to the Anglo-American links which help to shape what we think of now as the “English” garden.
The title of the seminar, The Art and Craft of Garden Making, is taken from a book by Thomas Mawson, first published in 1900 and re-published in expanded editions four times up to 1925. Mawson’s book influences generations of garden makers, amateur and professional, not least Lawrence Johnston, the American-turned-English creator of Hidcote Manor garden, which is widely considered to be one of the most seminal of twentieth-century English gardens.
In addition to his leading role as a garden designer, Thomas Mawson is the author of Civic Design and Professor of Civic Design at the University of Liverpool. Depending on the particular interests of participants in the seminar, we also explore the evolution of “landscape gardening” to the profession of “landscape architecture” and the sometimes prickly relationship between garden design and landscape design in England and the U.S. “Landscape architecture” is the term rather hesitantly proposed by Frederick Law Olmsted to describe his work. It is eventually adopted in England, too, when the Institute of Landscape Architects is founded in 1929 with Mawson as its first President.
There are three days of visits to key historic gardens including (subject to final arrangements) Thomas Mawson’s The Hil’ at Hampstead, Stourhead (probably the most beautiful of all 18th-century gardens), the little known garden of Iford Manor (created by its architect-owner Harold Peto from 1910 and incorporating Japanese and Italian elements in an idyllic English setting), and Hidcote Manor, the seminal 20th-century garden created by the American-turned-Englishman Lawrence Johnston.
This study of the art of gardens should appeal to anyone with an interest in English cultural history. By focusing also on the techniques—the craft—of garden designers through the centuries, from Lancelot “Capability’ Brown” to Gertrude Jekyll and the new breed of modernist garden designers, the seminar should also be useful for those seeking inspiration for their own garden making, whether as amateur gardeners or professional landscape architects.
Course Requirements
Students are required to write one paper of 1,500 to 2,000 words and to deliver one oral presentation.
Tutor Biography
Richard Bisgrove studied Horticultural Science at Reading University and Landscape Architecture at the University of Michigan. He has a special interest in garden history and garden design and has written seven books on these subjects. He has taught in Oxford summer schools over many years and has recently retired as Course Director for Landscape Management at the University of Reading.
Tutor Contact Details: Richard@bisgrove.plus.com
Reading List
Elisabeth Barlow Rogers, Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History (Harry N. Abrams 2001). A weighty tome covering the whole history of the whole world including (a rare inclusion) good coverage of North America—and England of course.
Roger Phillips & Nick Fey, Photographic Garden History (Macmillan 1995).
Similar scope (minus America) in a (very good) picture-book format. Ideal for anyone new to garden history.
Mavis Batey, Oxford Gardens (Avebury 1982). A really delightful book written by a former president of the Garden History Society and long-term Oxford figure, worth searching for.
Christopher Thacker, The Genius of Gardening, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1994). A history of gardens and gardening in England by an author more interested in literature than in plants—so a useful complement to my approach.
Books covering specific periods/aspects of English gardens:
John Harvey, Mediaeval Gardens, (Batsford 1981).
John Dixon Hunt & Peter Willis, The Genius of the Place, (MIT Press 1988).
Stephen Daniels, Humphry Repton: Landscape Gardening and the Geography of Georgian England, (Yale Univ Pr 1999).
Brent Elliott, The Victorian Garden, (Batsford 1986).
David Ottewill, The Edwardian Garden, (Yale U.Press 1989).
Thomas Hayton Mawson, The Art and Craft of Garden Making, (Batsford 1900; 5th edn. 1926).
Gertrude Jekyll and Lawrence Weaver, Gardens for Small Country Houses, (Country Life 1912; 5th edn. 1924; new edn. 2008).
Jane Brown, The Modern Garden, (Thames & Hudson 2001).
Field Trips
The seminar includes three days of visits to key historic landscapes and gardens within reach of Oxford, including (subject to final arrangements) Lawrence Johnston’s Hidcote Manor, Ernest Mawson’s “The Hill” at Hampstead, Stourhead (probably the most beautiful of all 18th-century gardens) and the little known garden of Iford Manor, created by its architect-owner Harold Peto from 1910 and incorporating Japanese and Italian elements in an idyllic English setting.
Credit and Enrollment Information
X412 History
(EDP 284166)