Tools of the Trade
David Marsh
- Region:
- Anywhere
- Notice Period:
- Emergency (maybe less than one week's notice)
- Type:
- Professional/academic/Hobby/Rotary/sometimes charity
- Fee:
- Paid: 100 online , more for travelling depending on distance etc
- Category:
- History
- Updated:
- 30th January 2023
- Tagged:
- Gardening | History | Tools | Horticulture
Garden tools rarely survive from generation to generation since the more they are used the more likely it is they will break or wear out, and get repaired or replaced. So now early garden implements are almost as scarce as references to them in original sources. Overlooked as commonplace, looked down on for being merely utilitarian, the wooden ones have rotted and the iron ones rusted away.
Most garden tools in the past were hand made from wood and iron. They were usually simple, and often quite crude, adaptations of farming implements. Specialization started in the 16th and 17th centuries so by about 1700 when John Evelyn drew the tools used in his own garden he had wheelbarrows and waterbarrows, rakes of “severall sizes and finesse”, and a veritable array of spades, trowels, hoes, shears and refined pruning tools to say nothing of other garden essentials such as flower pots sieves and measuring equipment. The proliferation of unusual or specialized equipment in the 18th and 19th centuries is almost unbelievable. How about cucumber straighteners, sunshades for individual dahlia blooms or four handed shears?
Now of course we can enjoy the benefits of mass production and mechanization in almost every task. But are the tools we use as beautiful or as interesting as those used by gardeners in the past?This talk tells some of their stories
Views: 432 | Enquiries: 0About David Marsh
I've been lecturing "live" and on-line about every aspect of the history of gardens, landscapes, as well as plant hunting /plants/botany for more than 25 years to gardens clubs, U3A groups, and to museums like the V&A & across higher education. I discovered the subject because after a career as a head teacher I took very early retirement and went back into education full time on my own account. I did a four year diploma course in Garden History which led on to an MA in Historical Research and then a PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London on The Gardens and Gardeners of Later Stuart London.
I was a trustee of The Gardens Trust, the national campaigning body for the protection and support of our historic parks, gardens and designed landscapes and chaired their education committee from 2016 until 2023. I also write a weekly blog for them which you can find at thegardenstrust.blog
I've run courses on the history of gardens [and many other things] at Birkbeck and City Lit. I'm currently an honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham and run a Masters Course in Garden History as well as offering supervision to PhD students.
If all that sounds posh - rest assured I'm not!
Other Talks on SpeakerNet by David Marsh
- The Little Men in Red Hats
- Castles for Cows & Palaces for Poultry
- What Made Your Garden Grow?
- The Joys [and Problems!] of Making a Garden in France
- The History of the London Square
- Plants on Paper: A Potted History of Botanical Art
- The Opposite of Chelsea: The Garden Festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire
- The National Botanic Gardens of Burma
- Humphry Repton: Britain’s First Landscape Gardener
- Puzzle Pictures
- The Elephant in the Garden
- The History of the Cottage Garden
- The Tradescants
- The palaces of Tudor London and their gardens...and their beasts!
- The Great Geranium Robbery
- An Introduction to Tudor and Stuart Gardens
- The Loudons
- The Picturesque
- Moorfields: The Story of London's First Public Park
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