Sharing Landscapes competition: how to enter

The Gardens Trust is running a new Sharing Landscapes competition to encourage greater inclusivity in enjoying historic parks and gardens. The Sharing Landscapes competition aims to encourage professionals and volunteers working in the historic landscape sector to push themselves to welcome as many people as possible to visit historic parks and gardens.

It is organised as part of the Garden Trust’s Sharing Repton: Historic Landscapes for All project, being run with Heritage Lottery Funding, thanks to the Lottery players. The project is finding new ways to engage wider audiences with historic parks and gardens, and accompanies the marking of Humphry Repton’s bicentenary as Celebrating Repton this year.

The prize is a bust of 18^th century landscape designer Humphry Repton and is donated by Haddonstone. Haddonstone marked the bicentenary of Humphry Repton’s death by commissioning professional sculptor Hannah Northam to create the bust, which is a significant and important piece of work as no previous portrait bust exists.

How to enter

The competition is open to anybody and the prize will be awarded for our favourite plan to get as many and as diverse a range of people as possible to see the bust. The winner could be a garden that plans to hold an open day with a twist, a public park that intends to actively encourage community groups to use its space, an individual working with a site to lead inclusive tours, a voluntary group planning an exhibition to reach new audiences … the sky’s the limit!

To enter, please send no more than 1000 words and 3 pictures to sharinglandscapes@thegardenstrust.org. Judges will be particularly looking for evidence that your proposal is a plan rather than idea, and for projects that consciously try to attract new audiences.

The closing date for applications is 30^th March 2019, so that the winners will be able to display the bust for their summer visiting season.

Good luck!