Wednesday, September 20, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Head Gardeners at Historic Sites: Graham Dillamore at Hampton Court and Kensington Palace
The Gardens Trust will focus on head gardeners working at historic sites. Split into two 5-week series on Wednesdays, the season will kick off with an exploration of the head gardener role over the past two centuries, followed by talks exploring how individual head gardeners are balancing the heritage of their site, the wishes of its owner(s) and their own interests and experience. We’ll hear about the role from both seasoned head gardeners and those more recently appointed. Join us to learn about the challenges they face, including climate change, as well as the joys of horticulture and heritage.
At the end of the first series, we will also be offering a FREE roundtable discussion on the different career paths available to head gardeners, and ways of encouraging more people to enter or progress in the profession. Please register separately for this.
You may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 5 sessions at a cost of £20 via the link here. [Gardens Trust members may use their promo code for a discount.] Please register separately for the roundtable discussion, or for individual sessions by following the links HERE. Ticket sales close 4 hours before the talk. 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.
On September 20 we will hear from Graham Dillamore. Hampton Court and Kensington Palace are two of the six sites run today by the charity Historic Royal Palaces. Hampton Court Palace’s world-famous gardens include 60 acres of spectacular formal gardens and 750 acres (304 hectares) of parkland, all set within a loop of the River Thames. Kensington Gardens began life as a King’s playground; for over 100 years, the gardens were part of Hyde Park and hosted Henry VIII’s huge deer chase. Shaped by successive monarchs, highlights of the 107-hectare site today include Bridgeman’s Serpentine, the Long Water, Italian Garden, the Edwardian sunken garden, and a new wildflower meadow.
Graham Dillamore is head gardener at Hampton Court and Kensington Palace and has cared for royal gardens for over 40 years. He started his career as an apprentice gardener at London’s Royal Parks, before becoming head gardener at Kensington Palace, and then joining the Royal Household to maintain the private gardens of the Prince and Princess of Wales in the 1980s. After transferring his skills to Hampton Court, Graham worked on several major landscape restoration projects including the recreation of William III’s Privy Garden (below), Home Parks tree avenues, the Royal Kitchen Gardens and more recently, the transformation of the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales.
