After a career in teaching and ending up as a head teacher in inner London, I took early [OK very early] retirement and decided to go back into education full time on my own account. I did a four year diploma course in Garden History and that led on to an MA in Historical Research at Birkbeck College, University of London in 1999. I enjoyed academia so much I went straight on to do a PhD at Birkbeck on The Gardens and Gardeners of Later Stuart London which I was awarded in 2005. I then went on to teach at both Birkbeck and City Lit.
I set up and ran until last year the country’s only postgraduate courses in garden history at the the University of Buckingham where I am honorary Senior Research Fellow at where I still ]supervise MA and PhD students! Click here for details
I was also until recently a trustee of the Gardens Trust, the national campaigning body for the protection and support of our historic parks, gardens and designed landscapes.
Since 2013 I’ve been writing a weekly blog about any aspects of garden history that takes my fancy which is designed to both inform and amuse, as well sometimes encouraging you to do a bit more research yourself. It comes out every Saturday morning in time for breakfast and you you can find it at thegardenhistory.blog
From 2011-2022 I was one of the convenors of the History of Gardens and Landscapes seminar at the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London. For their current programme see … http://www.history.ac.uk/events/seminars/121
And just in case you think it’s all rather theoretical I also try and run a 5 acre garden in western France, which my partner and I open to the public.
GARDEN HISTORY TALKS 