This lecture started out as a bit of a joke. I write a weekly blog for the Gardens Trust and its usually relatively easy to think of something informative or at least mildly amusing to write each Saturday morning. The only difficult times are when its a big event – such as Christmas or Easter. Everything obvious has already been done and I hate the thought of being forced into writing something too twee…. but luckily as one Easter deadline loomed I looked out of the window and saw our chickens…
I could have chickened out but I eggspect you’ll have guessed by now what I decided to dooodle do. It’s difficult to be original hens these fowl jokes and this poultry piece inspired by the feathered ladies who lived in my garden last summer. I decided to research where they might have laid their eggs had they lived in the gardens or grounds of one of our great stately homes in the 18th or 19thc.
And from hens it wasn’t much of a leap to think about cows and their historic homes… and one day I’ll get round to looking at mansions for monkeys, dwellings for ducks, and tenements for turtles…
GARDEN HISTORY TALKS 