The History of the Cottage Garden
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:
- Gardens | Horticulture | History | Art History
We all know what a cottage garden looks like don't we? We might even be able to describe its main features, although a short definitive account is quite elusive. So where does the phrase come from? When is it first used? You'd think the answer was obvious but actually it isn't. In fact there are few descriptions or images of the gardens of ordinary people before the mid- 19thc and when they do first appear, they show the poverty of rural life. Yet, within a few decades the cottage garden has become something to aspire to. Paintings show neat gardens full of billowing masses of bright flowers in a heavily romanticised take on reality. So what were cottage gardens actually like?
Views: 439 | 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
- Tools of the Trade
- Puzzle Pictures
- The Elephant in the 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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