Boston Flora

Tag: Stephen Wass

  • Tuesday, February 14, 10:00 am – 11:30 am GMT – The Vyne, Online

    This talk is the last in the Gardens Trust series exploring the role of archaeology for garden historians. On February 14 Stephen Wass will discuss The Vyne.

    A series of watching briefs on lengthy runs of pipework together with attendance on-site during the dismantling of the old concrete spillway at the lower end of the lake to the north of the house has revealed some major new buried features. Making sense of them whilst working under some of the most difficult and dangerous conditions we have ever encountered has proved to be a particularly challenging task, but it looks as if we will have plenty to say about the early layout of water features within the park.

    Dr. Stephen Wass is a researcher and has just completed his D. Phil. on the subject of seventeenth-century water gardens. In addition, he works as a commercial archaeologist. In this capacity most of his projects involve historic gardens and he is currently occupied with a series of archaeological investigations connected with the latest programme of restoration at Stowe Landscape Gardens near Buckingham. He is also working to set up a new research programme alongside the Oxfordshire Gardens Trust into the ‘lost’ Tudor and Jacobean gardens in the county.

  • Tuesday, January 24, 10:00 am – 11:30 am GMT – Garden Archaeology: Baddesley Clinton, Online

    This is the third series of Gardens Trust talks exploring how archaeology helps the garden historian find vital evidence on the ground which then informs future restoration projects and garden management plans. Our distinguished and popular speakers will be reporting mainly on current and on-going archaeology at various sites and with an emphasis on water features. £5 through Eventbrite. Register HERE. 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 will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.

    Work at Baddesley Clinton began early in 2022 to examine and appraise recent LiDAR coverage for the park. It revealed a number of new features including the sites of former fishponds and possible formal garden and moated mound. Further consideration of the sites on the ground and some new documentary material enabled a reassessment of the historic development of water management in the park and the suggestion made that the current ponds and canal north of the house are likely to be part of an early modern pleasure garden, in short a radical reappraisal of the entire landscape.

    Dr. Stephen Wass is a researcher and has just completed his D. Phil. on the subject of seventeenth-century water gardens. In addition, he works as a commercial archaeologist. In this capacity most of his projects involve historic gardens and he is currently occupied with a series of archaeological investigations connected with the latest programme of restoration at Stowe Landscape Gardens near Buckingham. He is also working to set up a new research programme alongside the Oxfordshire Gardens Trust into the ‘lost’ Tudor and Jacobean gardens in the county.

  • Tuesday, January 10, 10:00 am GMT – Garden Archaeology – Stowe Landscape Gardens, Online

    This is the first lecture in the Gardens Trust’s third series of talks exploring how archaeology helps the garden historian find vital evidence on the ground which then informs future restoration projects and garden management plans. Our distinguished and popular speakers will be reporting mainly on current and on-going archaeology at various sites and with an emphasis on water features. On January 10, Stephen Wass will discuss Stowe Landscape Gardens. Any property as vast as Stowe is will always have something going on that demands an archaeological eye keeping on it and the past twelve months have seen three major investigations that are reported on in this talk. Firstly having been postponed for the last couple of years work began on the refurbishment of Bell Gate Lodge. Two large scale projects involved works on the massive dam below the Eleven Acre Lake with a huge cut through the dam to insert a bypass pipe and the controlled partial dismantling of the cascade that took the overflow from the lake to create a secret waterfall hidden within a chasm lined by collapsing masonry. The lecture begins at 10 am Greenwich Mean Time, which is very early here in the US, but Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk, and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week. £5 through Eventbrite. Register HERE.

  • Tuesday, April 27, 5:00 am – 6:30 am – The Water Garden at Packwood, Online

    How to dismantle a dam, a Garden Trust program of investigation and restoration at Packwood House, Warwickshire, and an examination of the English water garden, will take place online at April 27 at 5 am Eastern.

    Remedial work to the dam below the Great Pool at Packwood House enabled, over the course of four years, a detailed account to be prepared of the construction and functioning of the dam together with a wider consideration of the part that water played in the early garden there, Documented features included an Elizabethan moated garden, important seventeenth century timber drains and relics of the wild parties from the early twentieth century.

    This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5, 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 £20 via the Eventbrite link here.

    Stephen Wass is a researcher, about to complete his D. Phil. on the subject of seventeenth-century water gardens. In addition, he works as a commercial archaeologist. In this capacity most of his projects involve historic gardens and he is currently occupied with a series of archaeological investigations connected with the latest program of restoration at Stowe Landscape Gardens near Buckingham. He is also working to set up a new research program alongside the Oxfordshire Gardens Trust into the ‘lost’ Tudor and Jacobean gardens in the county.