The Gardens Trust, in partnership with the Suffolk Gardens Trust, presents a Wednesday 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.
On November 2, Edward Martin will discuss Somerleyton Hall: Peto’s Scenes and Wentworth’s Curiosities. Somerleyton Hall, near Lowestoft in eastern Suffolk, has a wonderful Victorian garden, created for Sir Morton Peto, the railway entrepreneur and ‘father of Lowestoft’, by his architect, John Thomas, and the noted garden designer, William Andrews Nesfield. This is rightly graded II* by Historic England, but only recently has it been realized that it lies above the remains of extensive and perhaps even more wonderful gardens created there by Sir John Wentworth in the early 17th century. There is also an intriguing connection with that seminal figure of English garden history, John Tradescant.
Edward Martin is the chairman of the Suffolk Gardens Trust and a vice-president of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History. Now retired, he worked as an archaeologist with Suffolk County Council for many years, specialising in prehistory and historic landscape studies, and has lectured widely on the archaeology, history, landscape, buildings and gardens of Suffolk. His published works cover a diversity of subjects, from Bronze Age burial mounds, through medieval field systems to 18th-century gardens.
This link for a series ticket costs £16 for the entire course of 4 sessions or you may purchase a ticket for the individual session, costing £5 by clicking HERE. You will be routed through Eventbrite to purchase. 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.
