What is a garden? Why were they created as they were? What influences were at play in garden making, and how have gardens evolved and developed over time? These are the questions we will explore as we traverse the history of gardens through the ages.
Following on from our opening talks on early gardens, this second series will examine how gardens developed during the 17th century. We will explore how exotic plants from around the world started to appear in European gardens, and were captured in botanical art, before the tumultuous impact of the English civil wars on gardens and gardening from the 1640s. The second part of the century saw the rise of extravagant, dramatic styles, now known as baroque gardens and exemplified by the work of André Le Nôtre for the Sun King at Versailles. We will explore these gardens through an analysis of the work of Le Nôtre and his contemporaries in France, and the series will end with a talk scrutinising how the European baroque style played out in England.
This ticket – purchase through Eventbrite HERE – is for this individual talk and costs £8, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions via the links below, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire [second] series of 5 talks in our History of Gardens Course at £35 via the link here. (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25) Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks afterwards.
After decades of relative peace and prosperity in Britain, the mid 17th century saw the country plunged into civil war, resulting in almost twenty years of turmoil, instability and uncertainty. This talk will examine the effect that this had on gardens as their owners returned – from the wars, from exile, from prison – and retreated to their neglected estates. With no role to play in the new Commonwealth regime, they turned to rebuilding, improving and in some cases, creating wonderful new gardens, such as the ones built by John Evelyn at Sayes Court and Wotton House. These gardens, and the fascinating stories behind them, will be the subject of this talk.
Dr Jill Francis is an early modern historian, specializing in gardens and gardening in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. She has taught history at the universities of Birmingham and Worcester, and still contributes to the programme of activities for both the Centre for Midlands History and Winterbourne House and Gardens. She is currently involved with delivering the online lecture programme for the Gardens Trust, and also works at the Shakespeare Institute Library in Stratford-upon-Avon. Her book, Gardens and Gardening in Early Modern England and Wales, was published by Yale University Press in June 2018.
