Wednesday, November 9, 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm – Unforgettable Gardens: Religious Roots to Riotous Ingenuity: Bury St. Edmunds and its Abbey Gardens
The Suffolk Gardens Trust is pleased to be offering a series of four talks to highlight some aspects of the county’s rich gardening heritage. It is offered as a companion to the newly-launched co-operative project on ‘Suffolk’s Unforgettable Garden Story’ by The Gardens Trust and the Suffolk Gardens Trust, with funding by Historic England. This seeks to encourage research into the historic parks and gardens, public parks, cemeteries and other good examples of designed landscapes of Suffolk, with the overarching aim of adding layers of protection to these green spaces and to promote their future survival.
The link HERE is for a ticket that costs £16 for the entire course of 4 sessions or you may purchase a ticket for this individual session, costing £5 via the links HERE. 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.
The wonderful Caroline Holmes will speak on November 9 on Religious Roots to Riotous Ingenuity: Bury St. Edmunds and its Abbey Gardens. Bury’s religious roots are manifest in and around the Abbey Gardens, a 1000-year-old setting of intriguing ruins dominated by St Edmundsbury cathedral’s soaring millennium tower. We start with the 12th century Bury Herbal and Abbot Samson’s fishponds. Town maps chart its development and legacy: impressive Regency Botanical Gardens inspired by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Brussels which were later open by subscription. Colorful seasonal plantings celebrated George VI’s coronation, a kaleidoscope style which persists in Bury’s favourite public park. Ancient and modern monastic influences can be traced in the Pilgrims Herb Garden, and, the scene of medieval monastic riots, the Guildhall gardens. Will there be gardens celebrating the coronation of King Charles III, we wonder?
Caroline Holmes is Academic Tutor and Course Director for the University of Cambridge ICE, lecturer for The Arts Society, and is the author of 12 books. Her consultancies include devising planting for The Poison Garden, Alnwick, Humanist Renaissance inspired gardens around Notre Dame-de-Calais and currently for a new development near Thetford, creating two areas to celebrate the Queen’s Green Canopy and other public spaces. She has presented Viking TV features and her garden was filmed in September. Academic but not dry she has spoken on every continent except Antarctica.
