This Gardens Trust talk on May 19 is the third in the Gardens Trust’s 2nd series on Victorian Gardens on Thursdays @ 10.00 GMT. £5 each or all 6 for £30. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards. Register through Eventbrite HERE
Sir Joseph Paxton (1803-1865) is remembered for designing large-scale public works, including parks, cemeteries and buildings, most notably the Crystal Palace. These sites were intended to be used and enjoyed by everybody, but Paxton’s inspiration came from the more exclusive environment of the country house. Among his achievements at Chatsworth, where he was employed as head gardener to the 6th Duke of Devonshire, he created one of the tallest water fountains in the world, brought the Victoria Regia (Amazonica) water lily to flower, and built an enormous glasshouse called the Great Stove. These Chatsworth projects were not only horticultural, engineering or aesthetic endeavours. Paxton was also driven by a belief in the moralising influence of gardens and gardening. With the agreement of his employer and the support of his wife Sarah, he opened Chatsworth’s gates to tens of thousands of tourists every year. As his success increased, so did his reach – the Crystal Palace and its gardens were visited by millions. This talk will draw on correspondence from the Devonshire Collections archive to shed light on how Joseph Paxton understood the social impact of his work, as it grew in scale and traversed the boundaries of private and public.
Lecturer Dr Lauren Batt recently completed a PhD with the University of Sheffield in collaboration with the Collections Department at Chatsworth. Her thesis examined power and authority on the Chatsworth Estate between 1811 and 1877, focusing in particular on servants and estate workers. She subsequently worked with the image and ephemera collection at Derby Museums, in preparation for the opening of the Museum of Making, and as a Project Curator for the National Trust at Hardwick Hall. Lauren now works in the Curatorial Department at Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, and continues to research topics including historic graffiti, domestic service and model architecture on nineteenth-century country estates. At home, she is an enthusiastic but woefully inept gardener.
