The 16th and 17th centuries were the first great age of garden making in England. We all know what they were like don’t we? Knots, box hedging, herbs…maybe a few roses but not much else…. but actually we’d all be wrong! There was brick dust and mythical beasts. There were snail mounts and sunflowers. There were mazes and maize. There were hidden secrets too!
This talk is about how the garden developed from being simply a place to grow food to an elaborate display of wealth and status for the rich, a source of pleasure and recreation for the less well-to-do, and a place of very hard work for the garden labourers who toiled in them.
Of course, the talk can be adapted, altered or made more specific …Elizabethan gardens, water gardens, Tudor royal gardens, religious gardens, how plant introductions changed the garden etc etc.
GARDEN HISTORY TALKS 