This talk is the last in the Gardens Trust series exploring the role of archaeology for garden historians. On February 14 Stephen Wass will discuss The Vyne.
A series of watching briefs on lengthy runs of pipework together with attendance on-site during the dismantling of the old concrete spillway at the lower end of the lake to the north of the house has revealed some major new buried features. Making sense of them whilst working under some of the most difficult and dangerous conditions we have ever encountered has proved to be a particularly challenging task, but it looks as if we will have plenty to say about the early layout of water features within the park.
Dr. Stephen Wass is a researcher and has just completed his D. Phil. on the subject of seventeenth-century water gardens. In addition, he works as a commercial archaeologist. In this capacity most of his projects involve historic gardens and he is currently occupied with a series of archaeological investigations connected with the latest programme of restoration at Stowe Landscape Gardens near Buckingham. He is also working to set up a new research programme alongside the Oxfordshire Gardens Trust into the ‘lost’ Tudor and Jacobean gardens in the county.
