Boston Flora

Tag: Suffolk Gardens Trust

  • Tuesday, February 7, 10:00 am – 11:30 am, GMT – “The Canale Beautifull”, Online

    One of King Charles II’s first acts as a restored monarch was to build canals in his gardens at Hampton Court and St James’ Palace. These were not to be used by commercial barges but were long and thin water features in formal garden settings. His example led to a fashion for ‘garden canals’ and this talk will explore their origins, their Continental parallels and, in particular, their enthusiastic adoption in Suffolk, where over 50 examples were constructed before the fashion waned in the face of the cohorts of William Kent and Capability Brown and they slid into unrecognized obscurity.

    This is the fifth in a Gardens Trust series of lectures on Garden Archaeology. It will take place February 7 at 10 am GMT and is £5 through Eventbrite 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

    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.

  • Tuesday, January 17, 10:00 am – 11:30 am GMT – Garden Archaeology: Designed for Display: Medieval and Tudor Moats, 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. On January 17 we will hear Designed for Display: Medieval and Tudor Moats, with Edward Martin.

    Moated houses may have been conceived in imitation of castles and their defences, but from very early on they became vehicles for the display of status and wealth, with decorative embellishments and additions reaching a climax in Tudor times. Suffolk, with more than 900 examples, has one of the greatest concentrations of moats in England, and it will form the focus of this exploration of the origins of moats and their development as decorative settings for houses.

    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, specializing 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.

    £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. That way you don’t have to get up so very early here in the US.

  • Wednesday, November 2, 1:30 pm – Unforgettable Gardens: Somerleyton Hall: Peto’s Scenes of Enchantment and Wentworth’s Curiosities

    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.