History Hub Listings Archive - The Gardens Trust

History Hub

Exploring Garden History

Discover the people, places, styles and stories that have shaped our historic landscapes. The History Hub brings together resources from across the Gardens Trust to help you explore centuries of garden design, from visionary designers to iconic sites and enduring traditions.

Apollo and the Muses on Mount Helicon. Claude Lorrain, 1680.

Periods

Gardens created for utility and beauty

Monasteries, castles, the rich and the poor all had gardens in medieval times but what did they look like and what did they grow?

Articles

People

Known for his visionary “Red Books” that combined art, narrative and design, Repton’s work bridged the grandeur of Capability Brown with a more intimate, picturesque style that endures in the English landscape today.

Places

Stourhead Gardens

A walk round this exceptional English landscape garden made by Henry Hoare in the mid-18th century demonstrating many of the design principles that distinguished this type of garden from the very formal gardens of the 17th century.

Topics

Park and Garden Features

Parks and gardens contain lots of interesting features, many of which may have been built years, decades or centuries ago. How many can you spot in your local park or garden and when do you think they were created?

Places

Hestercombe Gardens

A unique site with four complete period gardens including 17th century, Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian gardens.

People

Ellen Wilmott

In a time when women were expected to stay in the drawing room, Ellen Ann Willmott (1858–1934) was digging in the dirt, often quite literally reshaping the landscape of British gardening.

Places

Osborne House Gardens

Imagine stepping into a garden where history lingers in the air, where Queen Victoria and Prince Albert once found solace amid vibrant blooms. Osborne House on the Isle of Wight is more than just a former royal residence – it’s a place where nature and history intertwine, creating an atmosphere that feels both grand and intimate.

People

William Gilpin and the Picturesque in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

The Picturesque was a very popular idea in the mid to late eighteenth century, initially focussing on viewing the natural landscape as if it were a picture in a frame, although it later evolved into a more complex set of aesthetic ideals and influenced fashions in English landscape garden design.

Topics

Threats to Parks and Gardens

Each year parks and gardens face a range of modern-day threats that can compromise their value and long-term survival.

Styles

The English Landscape Garden

The English Landscape Garden developed throughout the eighteenth century and has been called our greatest contribution to art and culture.

Styles / Topics

Jane Austen and the Picturesque

Exploring how Jane Austen presents, and subtly comments on, the Picturesque in Sense and Sensibility, through the creation of both character and dialogue.

People

William Robinson

William Robinson (1835–1935) was apparently responsible for the design of only one garden, Gravetye Manor in Sussex, but his influence is still felt today.

Places

Levens Hall

The gardens at Levens Hall are best known as the home of the world’s oldest topiary garden, an extraordinary collection of ancient box and yew trees sculpted into abstract and geometric shapes.

Topics

Wheelbarrows

Was it simply an item of garden equipment or instead a weapon of war?

Places

Painswick Rococo Garden

The beautiful Grade II* listed Georgian garden at Painswick features a fantastical landscape of deceptive vistas, serpentine paths, pools, woodlands, follies and a grand formal vegetable garden.

Places

Heritage Seed Library

Catrina Fenton, head of the Heritage Seed Library at charity Garden Organic, explains more about this unique ‘living library’ of heritage vegetables – which in 2025 is celebrating its 50th anniversary

History Hub

Exploring Garden History

Discover the people, places, styles and stories that have shaped our historic landscapes. The History Hub brings together resources from across the Gardens Trust to help you explore centuries of garden design, from visionary designers to iconic sites and enduring traditions.

Periods

Gardens created for utility and beauty

Articles

People

Places

Topics

Places

People

Places

People

Topics

Styles

Styles / Topics

People

Places

Topics

Places

Places

The Gardens Trust

Quick links

Contact us

Connect with us