The Gardens Trust New Research Symposium is an annual opportunity to share new and unpublished interdisciplinary research relating to garden history.
It is open to all researchers and scholars, regardless of whether they are attached to an academic institution, and we welcome submissions from international scholars as well as those based in the UK. Since its launch in 2011, the symposium has hosted cutting-edge research from more than seventy researchers.
Call for Papers
This year’s symposium will take place online on Saturday 15th November 2025. Tickets are free and booking via Eventbrite will open nearer the time.
We welcome submissions from researchers approaching garden history and conservation from various academic disciplines and vocational backgrounds. Papers could, for example, include topics such as: explorations of little-known gardens, aspects of botany, ecology, horticulture, archaeology, social history, architecture, design, art history or sculpture.
Please send a 200-word abstract for a 15-minute paper along with a brief biography to newresearchsymposium@thegardenstrust.org by midnight on Sunday 29th June 2025.
Those shortlisted for possible inclusion in the symposium will be invited for an informal online interview during July.
Speakers in previous years
2024
New Research Symposium 2024, part 1 Online, Saturday 23 November
Chair: India Cole, PhD candidate, Queen Mary University of London and Oxford Botanic Garden
Kitty Edgerley, PhD student in Comparative Literatures and Cultures at the University of Bristol: Embodying the Garden – Mihrī Hatun’s Poetry and Performance
Ellie Lewis, Masters student at King’s College London studying Early Modern English Literature: Productive Plants and Wasteful Weeds in Early Modern Literature
Grace Murray, who recently submitted her AHRC-funded PhD thesis in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York: Pomegranates and Gillyflowers – A Seventeenth-Century Welsh Garden
Aideen Herron, Irish Research Council-funded PhD student at University College Dublin: By the Bishop’s Design: An analysis of the designed landscape of Georgian Armagh
New Research Symposium 2024, part 2 Online, Saturday 30 November
Chair: India Cole, PhD candidate, Queen Mary University of London and Oxford Botanic Garden
Kealey Kennedy, holder of an MA in Public History from the University of Western Ontario: Colonial Landscapes – The Unique Phenomenon of Garden Cemeteries in Malta
Georgia M. C. Russell, PhD student in History at University of Durham: Chester Zoological Gardens – Recreation and Hope in Wartime Cheshire (1935-1945)
Zohar Shvarzberg, who holds an MSc in landscape architecture from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology:Rooted Traditions – Exploring Thai Migrant Gardens in Israel
Viveca Mellegard, AHRC-funded PhD candidate at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Troubled Paradise: the identification with ancient culture in contemporary Iranian gardens
2023
New Research Symposium 2023 Online, Saturday 25 November
Chair: India Cole, PhD candidate, Queen Mary University of London and Oxford Botanic Garden
Chi Jen Li, PhD, Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield: An exploration of the work of ‘the first teacher of landscape architecture in China’, Sun Xiaoxiang
Soumyajit Basu, PhD candidate, UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded and associate lecturer in law at Birkbeck School of Law, University of London: Luther Burbank and his Santa Rosa ‘garden of invention’
Agnieszka Whelan, Master Lecturer in Art History, Old Dominion University, Virginia: Bucolic imagery in Polish theatre design in the eighteenth century
Abigail Raynock Richard, Landscape Heritage Consultant, Lafayette. U.S.A.: Last stop on the Azalea Trail: The Mouton Ram in his lost City Beautiful
2022
New Research Symposium 2022 part 1 Online, Saturday 26 November
Lisa White, Graduate, MA Garden and Landscape History, University of London: Alexander McKenzie, the 19th century Horticulturist and Landscape Designer – His Life, Career, and Legacy
Sara Tenneson, PhD University of London: Sir Reginald Blomfield – a reappraisal
Emily Ann Francisco, Doctoral candidate, University of Delaware: Margaret Foley’s Fountain – Sculpture, Horticulture, and Imperial-ism at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition
Francesca Murray, PhD candidate, Queen Mary University of London: The Stanwick Nectarine
New Research Symposium 2022 part 2 Online, Saturday 10 December
India Cole, PhD candidate, Queen Mary University of London: The Bobarts and the Oxford Physic Garden
Lisa Johnson, PhD candidate, Department of History and Art History, Utrecht University: Horticultural knowledge and exotic fruit in the Dutch Republic: Melon cultivation 1600 – 1750
Mike Cousins, PhD University of London and Independent garden historian: Through Visitors’ Eyes – a data-driven exploration of parks and gardens of the eighteenth century
Ben de Lee, Graduate MA Garden and Landscape History, University of London and independent scholar: When Men Wore Flowers: The Correspondence of Men’s Elite Fashion and Eighteenth-Century English Gardens
2021
New Research Symposium 2021 part 1 Online, Saturday 4 September
Scott Fulford , independent researcher, Boston, Massachusetts: The Practice of Sidney Nichols Shurcliff
Stephani Mc Phee, recent graduate in Urban Planning and Sustainability from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.: Stream Restoration as a Biophilic Urbanism Tactic
Jean Cornell: recent PhD from the Institute of Historical Research, University of London: Ahead of His Time? The Garden Designs of the Artist-Gardener, Lieutenant John Alfred Codrington (1898-1991)
Elizabeth Michel, independent researcher, New York: Takeo Shiota
New Research Symposium 2021 part 2, Online, Saturday 20 November
Charlotte McLean, PhD student at Manchester Metropolitan University : Megget Valley Reservoir: Before, Then and Now
Marilyn Brown, independent researcher: ‘When the King Enjoys His Own Again’ or Leslie House: the garden you create when you win all the prizes at the Restoration.
Louise Crawley, PhD Student, University of East Anglia, : ‘Is This Not Quite Pastoral?’: Reinterpreting the Language of the Eighteenth Century Landscape Park
Suzanne Moss: post-doctoral fellow, University of York, Gardens as sites of knowledge generation
2020
New Research Symposium 2020 Online, Saturday 5 September
Camilla Allen, PhD candidate, Department of Landscape, University of Sheffield: The forester who saw the world as a garden: the impact of practical faith and practical horticulture on the visionary forester and conservationist, Richard St. Barbe Baker
Joakim Seiler, PhD candidate in the Department of Conservation at the University of Gothenburg; Head Gardener at the eighteenth-century estate of Gunnebo House, Sweden: Management regimes for lawns and hedges in historic gardens
Rebecca J. Squires, Researcher in the Faculty of Architecture at KU Leuven University, Brussels: The Evocative Parcours: The Eighteenth-Century Picturesque Garden as Instrument of Evocation and Locus of Sensation
Rory Hutchings, Independent researcher working at the London Metropolitan Archives: Virginia Woolf’s mystic garden(s)
2019
New Research Symposium 2019, The Queen's College, Oxford, Saturday 7 September 2019
Laurie Matthews, Independent Researcher (Director of Preservation Planning & Design, MIG inc, adjunct faculty, Landscape Architecture & Historic Preservation, University of Oregon) Landscape as Storyteller: Linking chronicles of revelry, refuge, and restraint for four generations of 16th century women to their home landscapes
Jemima Hubberstey, PhD candidate, University of Oxford/English Heritage (collaborative): “A very fine Shepherdess”: Jemima Marchioness de Grey’s role in the gardens of Wrest Park
Caroline Ikin, PhD candidate, Manchester Metropolitan University (GT and Sussex GT member): Reading Ruskin in the garden: the ideas that shaped Brantwood
Ailie O’Hagan, PhD candidate, Ulster University: Realism and Expression: visual representations of the Annesley Gardens
2018
New Research Symposium 2018 Highbury Hall, Birmingham, Sunday 2 September 2018
Stephen Radley, PhD candidate, Nottingham University, member of Northamptonshire GT: A Landscape of Aspiration: Charles Tibbits, Humphry Repton and Barton Hall, Northamptonshire
Camilla Allen, PhD candidate, Department of Landscape, University of Sheffield: The Three Cathedrals of Trees: Glencruitten, Whipsnade, Milton Keynes
Elizabeth Michel, Independent Researcher, (PhD Modern European History, New York University): The Restoration of the garden in Berlin of the German Impressionist Painter, Max Libermann
Casandra Funsten, Independent Researcher, MA Agricultural Science (Park and Garden Design and Management) University of Palermo, Sicily (BA English & BA Landscape Architecture, University of California Berkeley): The Courtyard Garden in the “Antonino Salinas” Archaeological Museum
2017
New Research Symposium 2017 University of Plymouth, Friday 1 September
Dominic Ingram, DPhil candidate in History (2nd year), Magdalen College, University of Oxford: The Country Estates of Military Officers in Britain, 1700–1750
Beryl Saitch, Independent researcher, London Parks and Gardens Trust, Surrey Gardens Trust: Blanche Henrey, 1906-1983, Botanical Bibliographer
Elsie Roulston, Graduate, MA Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield (distinction): Plantsman vs Place-maker: An analysis of James (Jim) Russell and his work in Co. Donegal, Ireland from 1953 to 1985
Patricia Wilson, MA candidate (2nd year), Institute of Historical Research
(symposium subject independently researched while a student at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh): From a Scottish Shore to an Italian Lakeside: the link between Galloway House, Wigtownshire, and Villa Taranto, Lake Maggiore
2016
New Research Symposium 2016 University of Cambridge, Friday 2 September
Vicky Pickering, PhD candidate, School of Geography, Queen Mary University of London and Centre for Arts and Humanities Research, Natural History Museum: Richard Richardson and his botanical exchanges in the early eighteenth century.
Advolly Richmond, Independent Researcher: Garden, Landscape and Social History: The Reverend Thomas Birch Freeman, Victorian Botanist and Plantsman.
Michael O’Sullivan, Environmental Planning Consultant and Lecturer in Environmental Impact Assessment: Doneraile Park, Co. Cork: AProvincial Park of Exceptional Pedigree.
2015
GHS Graduate Symposium 2015 University of Newcastle, Friday 24 July
Erin McHugh
History Honours, St Olafs College (Liberal Arts), Minnesota
The role of iconography within the French formal garden at Versailles.
Kasie Alt
PhD candidate, University of Texas at Austin
Fictions and Fabrications: The Gothic Folly at Wimpole.
Dianne Long
PhD candidate, University of Exeter
(MA in Garden History University of Buckingham)
Designed Landscapes of Industrialists 1700 – c.1820.
Nick Chibnall
D.Phil candidate, Garden History, University of Buckingham
(MA in Garden History, University of Bristol)
Villa Gardens of Liguria and the Italian Riviera.
2014
GHS Graduate Symposium 2014 University of Cardiff, Friday 24 July
Spencer Gavin Smith
PhD candidate, Manchester Metropolitan University
Rills and Romance: Gardens at the Castles of Edward I in Wales.
Ann Benson
MA in Garden History, University of Bristol (2013)
Garden historian as polymath: discovering the lost gardens of the dukes of Beaufort.
Amber Winick
Fulbrightscholar (MA, Bard Graduate Center, 2013)
Landscape and national identity: the design of the Budapest Zoological Gardens.
Claire de Carle
Candidate, MA in Garden History, University of Buckingham
The Work of Maud Grieve during World War One.
Nick Chibnall (unable to present due to illness, see 2015)
D.Phil candidate, Garden History, University of Buckingham
(MA in Garden History, University of Bristol)
Villa Gardens of Liguria and the Italian Riviera.
2013
GHS Graduate Symposium 2013, The Garden Museum, London, Friday 12 July
Jessica Tipton
PhD Candidate, University of Bristol
An 18th-century Russian visitor’s impressions of English gardening.
Paolo Cornaglia
PhD, Assistant Professor, Turin Polytechnic
French gardens and gardening families in Piedmont in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Diane James
PhD Candidate, University of Warwick
‘An endless variety of forms and proportions’: Indian Influence on British Gardens and Garden Architecture.
Michal Bitton
PhD Candidate, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
The Garden as Sacred Nature and the Garden as a Church: Transitions of Design and Function in the Garden of Gethsemane, 1800–1959.
Alison Wear
MA Garden History (Distinction), University of Bristol, 2012
Roberto Burle Marx, 1909–1994: Painting with Nature.
2012
GHS Graduate Symposium 2012, The Garden Museum, London, Friday 13 July
Leslie Diane Hunter
MA candidate (18th Century British History), University of Nevada, Las Vegas
The Secrets of the Hampton Court Maze.
John Hemingway
M.Phil candidate (West Midlands History), University of Birmingham
An Interim Study of the Influences of William Shenstone on Other Gardens in Eighteenth Century England.
Anne King
Independent Researcher
Thomas Main, Gardener: Changing the U.S. Landscape, a Washington, DC perspective, c.1812.
Winnie Y.L. Chan
DPhil candidate, Institute for Chinese Studies, University of Oxford
Looking for Antiquity and the New: The Chinese Hong Merchant Gardens of Guangzhou in the Nineteenth Century.
Elaine Taylor
MA Landscape, Heritage and Society, University of Chester
A Garden for Lord Leverhulme: Roynton Cottage, near Bolton, Lancashire.
2011
GHS Graduate Symposium 2011 University of Keele, Friday 22 July
Sarah Hundleby
MA Garden History, Birkbeck College, University of London
The Development of Bramham Park, 1700–1731
Sarah Law
PhD candidate, Department of Geography, Nottingham University
The Rufford Abbey Estate in the early eighteenth century in the context of hunting, in particular the emerging sport of fox hunting
Oliver Cox
D.Phil (History) candidate, University College, Oxford
Jeremiah Dixon, Alfred the Great, and the merchant fathers of Leeds in the late eighteenth-century
Gabriele Mulè
Scholar of Garden and Landscape History, University of Palermo
The Extended Garden. Sicilian landscape as an English garden: from Castelvetrano to Selinunte following Henry Swinburne, Grand-Tourtraveller
Elaine Mitchell
MA (West Midlands History) candidate, University of Birmingham
‘A fine crop of peaches, and several hundred geraniums’; the flowering of Thomas Clark’s metallic hothouse manufactory in the early nineteenth century
