Tag: Oxfordshire Gardens Trust

  • Thursday, October 15, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Eastern – Jane Austen & The English Landscape, Online

    Austen is famed for her sharp social satire, but she was also highly attuned to the shifting sensibilities surrounding landscape. From Pride and Prejudice’s wickedly funny take on the Picturesque to the lampooning of real-life landscaper Humphry Repton in Mansfield Park, there is no doubt that Austen had a deep love of the English landscape. She recognized that “to sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.”

    Dr Laura Mayer has an MA in Garden History and a PhD in 18th Century patronage. Originally an art historian, she fell into Garden History after working at the Alhambra in Granada. She has published extensively – particularly on Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and on Jane Austen’s contemporary, Humphry Repton. Laura shares Elizabeth Bennett’s appreciation of Gilpin’s picturesque, as well as her talent for tramping about a garden inappropriately shod. She has worked as a consultant for the National Trust, English Heritage and Land and Heritage. She lectures regularly for the Gardens Trust and Cambridge Botanic Gardens.

    This October 15 online talk is sponsored by the Oxfordshire Gardens Trust. £4 for members; £5 for non-members. Booking is through Eventcube. Visit www.ogt.org.uk for registration.

  • Thursday, November 17, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm – Landscape Architecture, Blenheim and Elsewhere, Online

    Hal Moggridge, OBE, gives an illustrated talk on November 17 for the Oxfordshire Gardens Trust about his work in landscape architecture including his role with Ralph Cobham in restoration planting for the Capability Brown masterpiece at Blenheim, his later work for the historic Royal Parks in London, the creation, helped by Tony Jellard, of the National Botanic Garden of Wales in 1995–2000 and, in 1979, the garden for Stevens Close for Jesus College in Oxford.


    Hal Moggridge is a Consultant at Colvin & Moggridge, the landscape architecture practice established when Brenda Colvin invited him to join her as her partner in 1969. She was in her 70s and he only 33. The success of the public enquiries that often preceded consent for the large industrial landscape projects for which the practice was renowned can, in part, be attributed to Hal’s encyclopaedic knowledge of each and every site. In the 1980s Hal played a key role in restoring the Capability Brown masterpiece at Blenheim, thus reviving the national interest in Brown and the Georgian natural landscape garden. Hal has never lost his feeling for the importance of views that his rediscovery of Brown inspired, and more recently, his pioneering work defining the spatial character of important urban views in Edinburgh and London has won him international acclaim. Like Brenda before him, Hal was honoured for his unique thinking and work in landscape architecture. £5.00. Register HERE.

  • Thursday, October 20, 12:00 noon – 1:30 pm ET – The Market Garden, Past and Present, Online

    Lecture by Liz Wright, writer and editor of Smallholder magazine, on the history of the market garden from the 1930s, through the Second World War years and beyond, will take place October 20 at 7 pm GMT (noon Eastern), sponsored by the Oxfordshire Gardens Trust. Liz Wright is a writer and author and the editor of Smallholder magazine. She has a special interest in pre and post Second World War history and speaks t on the market garden.

    Booking here £5.00.