Boston Flora

Tag: Advolly Richmond

  • Tuesday, October 14, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – From the Archives: William Andrews Nesfield, Reconsidered

    The five part Gardens Trust and Garden Museum series on William Andrews Nesfield concludes on October 14 with a round table discussion. This will draw together some of the themes and trends that have emerged from the series, highlight and debate further Nesfield designs, and share ideas for using the archives to re-examine Nesfield’s style, his significance during his lifetime and his legacy today.

    Participants will include Ben Dark, author, head gardener, award-winning broadcaster and landscape historian, who gave the keynote talk at the Garden Museum’s launch of the Nesfield archives; Advolly Richmond, plant, garden and social historian, who has studied Nesfield’s designs at Alton Towers; Christina Hourigan, whose doctoral research includes examining Nesfield’s work at Kew; Rob Hillman, archivist at the Garden Museum; and some of the speakers from the earlier sessions in the series.

    If you are involved in any way with individual Nesfield commissions (for instance as researcher, guide, gardener or volunteer), we’d be delighted if you’d join this session and share information about your site. This ticket is for this individual session and costs £8. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the talk ( and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 2 weeks. Register HERE.

  • Wednesday, February 19, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Places to Play: Alton Towers, an Early Regency Theme Park

    Designed landscapes are typically defined as places laid out for artistic effect or aesthetic purposes, somewhere to contemplate and admire. Yet many people have a much more active relationship with outdoor spaces, engaging with them for jogging, cycling, ball games, playgrounds and carnival rides. They are places to play.

    This Gardens Trust series will examine the relationship between historic designed landscapes and organized recreation. We’ll be exploring children’s outdoor play, a world-famous theme park set among a Grade 1 Regency landscape, a Premier League football stadium that was once a Victorian pleasure ground, an early 18th-century estate that is now a golf course, and a Victorian public park which was opposed by local workers despite its claimed recreational and health-giving benefits.

    This ticket (register HERE) is for this individual session and costs £8, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 5 sessions at a cost of £35 via the link here. (Gardens Trust members £6 or £26.25). 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 2 weeks) will be sent shortly afterwards.

    Week Two: Many people will have experienced the thrills and spills of a day out to Alton Towers with its famous attractions. But long before the gravity defying rides arrived, Alton Towers and its range of ‘pick and mix’ garden features and eclectic planting had already developed a reputation as a ‘Theme Park’ in its own right. Created by the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury between 1814 and 1827, Alton Towers became one of the most renowned gardens to visit in the Regency and Victorian age.

    In this talk, Advolly will examine the history and development of a unique garden that survived quietly, and has now been fully restored, while all eyes were focused on the donkey rides and rollercoasters.

    Advolly Richmond is a plants, gardens and social historian based in Shropshire. A Fellow of the Linnean Society, she is also a Champion for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She lectures and writes on a range of subjects and is currently teaching A Social and Cultural History of Italian Renaissance Gardens at the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford. Advolly’s new book A Short History of Flowers: The stories that make our gardens (Frances Lincoln) was published in March 2024. She also contributes garden history features on BBC`s Gardeners World and produces ‘The Garden History Podcast.’

    ©Advolly Richmond

  • Monday, April 12, 1:00 pm – 12:30 pm – Other Voices in Garden History: Guns and Roses: Humphrey Repton at Warley Park, Online

    The landscape gardener Humphry Repton’s working life witnessed great social change. He disliked the new money men connected with trade and commerce, but reluctantly benefited greatly from these bankers, industrialist and merchants who profited from war and colonial contracts. The profits of empire percolated through the whole of the British economy and funded the creation of many gardens and landscapes of aspiration. This online lecture sponsored by The Gardens Trust on April 12 at 1 pm Eastern looks at Humphry Repton’s work for the Quaker gun manufacturer Samuel Galton Junior at his estate at Warley Woods, Birmingham.

    This is the first in a ten part series celebrating the voices beginning to be heard. This series of illustrated lectures will explore the impact and legacy of empire, colonialism and enslavement on western garden and landscape history. The aim is to bring back some of the voices usually absent from this history, to identify and fill gaps in our collective knowledge, and to explore new ways of engaging with the whole history of gardens, landscapes and horticulture.

    The diverse range of topics and speakers will offer a new range of perspectives on the history of gardens and landscapes and suggest more inclusive ways of presenting and interpreting their stories. The series does not aim to point fingers or to encourage hand-wringing but is more a celebration of voices starting to be heard.

    Garden, Plant and Social Historian Advolly Richmond is an independent researcher based in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, UK. She is a trustee of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust and she sits on the Gardens Trust Events and Education Committee. Through her Royal Horticultural Society training and qualifications she went on to achieve an MA in Garden History from the University of Bristol. A member of the Garden Media Guild, she is a television presenter on BBC Gardener’s World and a contributor to BBC Gardener’s Question Time. She lectures on a variety of 16th to 20th century subjects and is currently researching the life and achievements of the Anglo-African Victorian botanist the Reverend Thomas Birch Freeman (1809 – 1890).

    Tickets are five pounds (approximately $7), payable through Eventbrite by clicking HERE.