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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.

Articles

Topics

Landscape Design Consultant John Harris recounts his career in Wigan Council’s Landscape Department helping to design and maintain designed landscapes

Topics

John takes us on a journey through football pitches of the 60s and 70s from both a spectator and a player’s perspective

Topics

The first football pitches of the 1800s were scythed or grazed but over time evolved into highly maintained landscapes incorporating drainage, heating and new technology such as Astroturf

Topics

The rise of football in Britain coincided with one of the great social innovations of the nineteenth century – the creation of public parks.

Places / Topics

A personal account of visiting and witnessing the remarkable restoration of one of England’s finest 18th-century landscape gardens by Tony Mott

Topics

The invention and troubled introduction of the secateur in France and England as a replacement to the billhook and pruning knife

Garden Historians

Landscape Design Consultant John Harris describes his career helping to design and maintain designed landscapes

Places / Topics

One of the city’s most enduring innovations has been quietly shaping lives for almost two centuries.

Topics

A park or garden is more than a single focal point like a fountain, their true charm lies in the full sensory experience of a place including distant views, soothing sounds, and crisp, fresh air.

Topics

The Society has produced an Annual Report since 1833 and these invaluable records are now available online