Created and re-created against the backdrop of cycle of war and peace with its accompanying social and economic impacts, the twentieth century garden pivots between tradition and modernism, informality and structure. The century sees a shift in both style and materials as concrete takes its place at the heart of new towns and spaces, whilst the country house garden struggles to survive and flourish again in a new order. Garden design increasingly reflects the needs of a wider range of society, whilst literary and artistic movements locate gardens at the very heart of the struggle for meaning in a world of change and aspiration. The Gardens Trust series reflects the continuity and change in garden design and understanding through the twentieth century highlighting specific gardens and designers and setting them within more contextual discussions. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week. Tickets £30 or £5 each. To purchase a ticket for the complete series through Eventbrite, visit HERE. The Gardens Trust has complete details on its website.

The first lecture on February 23 is Decline, Fall, and Rise – The Country House and its Garden Between the Wars and After, with Ben Cowell. Country houses and gardens faced significant pressures in the early 20th century. Rising costs, diminishing incomes and the impact of war meant that by the early 1950s country houses were disappearing from the landscape at an unprecedented rate, as owners took the decision to cut their losses and recoup the value of their assets. This could leave gardens as the only surviving relics of vanished mansion properties, and these gardens too frequently fell into disarray given the shrinkage in the number of employed gardening staff. Yet the 1950s and 60s also saw a recovery in the fortunes of some estates, as a result of the post-War boom in leisure and tourism. This talk considers the fate of country houses and their gardens, and the efforts that were taken to bring them back to life in the second half of the 20th century.

Ben Cowell is the Director General of Historic Houses, which represents 1,500 independently owned country houses and gardens across the UK and has nearly 70,000 general members. Ben previously worked for the National Trust and English Heritage. His PhD at the University of Nottingham was on the social and economic history of estate landscapes in the 18th and 19th centuries. His published books include a history of the heritage movement: The Heritage Obsession (The History Press, 2008), and works on different aspects of landscape history: Uvedale Price; Decoding the Picturesque (with Charles Watkins, The Boydell Press, 2012), and Landscapes of the National Trust (with Stephen Daniels and Lucy Veale, Pavilion Books, 2015). Ben was awarded an OBE for services to cultural heritage in the 2021 New Year Honours list.