Gardens (descriptions, history etc) Books

Book SynopsisTwenty-five years ago Mitchell cut down a 1 1/2-acre stand of 75-year-old white pines and planted a garden in their place. AN EDEN OF SORTS is a history of the plants and animals that lived on the tract over the next decades, including two generations of half-wild children! What started out as a plot with no more that five or six flowering plants and shrubs, over the years grew into more than a thousand species of plants and animals inhabiting the property. This is a paradoxical yet hopeful narrative of what can happen to a plot of land when it is properly managed.Trade Review"There’s nothing like a garden wedding to force a home owner to whip the place into shape. With its borders of flowering trees and shrubs, inviting series of garden rooms, and charming wee cottages dotting the landscape, the Massachusetts garden of versatile writer Mitchell (The Rose Cafe, 2007) was deemed the perfect place for the family event. Given a year to accomplish what he assumed would be a straightforward spruce up, Mitchell reveled in the opportunity to become reacquainted with the land that had changed during the 25 years he had owned it. A diverse environment, Mitchell’s garden boasts woodland and wetland, meadow and hillside, where dragonflies flit and hunt. An astute observer, Mitchell maintains an encyclopedic knowledge of the property: he knows the precise number and name of every species of grass and wildflower, and he monitors the habits of birds and woodland predators that call his home their home, too. With pride and eloquence, Mitchell recounts the natural heritage of a land that serves as an idyllic refuge for man and beast alike. — Carol Haggas " -- Booklist"[Mitchell] writes lyrically of the process of building the gardens and exploring them with his children and grandchildren, and he describes the natural history of the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, spiders, and insects, as well as the wide variety of plants that call the garden home. Mitchell shows that gardeners can create and manage a range of useful habitats as opposed to the sterile grounds of the housing development to his east. An engaging book that will delight gardeners who enjoy attracting wildlife, as well as readers captivated by natural history. —Sue O’Brien" -- Library Journal

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Book SynopsisThis volume aims to restore the reputation of Thomas White, who in his time was as well respected as his fellow landscape designers Lancelot 'Capability' Brown and Humphry Repton. By the end of his career, he had produced designs for at least 32 sites across northern England and over 60 in Scotland. These include nationally important designed landscapes in Yorkshire such as Harewood House, Sledmere Hall, Burton Constable Hall, Newby Hall, Mulgrave Castle as well as Raby Castle in Durham, Belle Isle in Cumbria and Brocklesby Hall in Lincolnshire. He has a vital role in the story of how northern English designed landscapes evolved in the 18th century.The book focuses on White's known commissions in England and sheds further light on the work of other designers such as Brown and Repton, who worked on many of the same sites. White set up as an independent designer in 1765, having worked for Brown from 1759, and his style developed over the next thirty years. Never merely a 'follower of Brown', as he is often erroneously described, his designs for plantations in particular were much admired and influenced the later, more informal styles of the picturesque movement.The improvement plans he produced for his clients demonstrate his surveying and artistic skills. These plans were working documents but at the same time works of art in their own right. Over 60 of his beautifully-executed coloured plans survive, which is a testament to the value his clients placed on them. This book makes available for the first time over 90% of the known plans and surveys by White for England. Also included are plans by White's contemporaries, together with later maps, estate surveys and contemporary illustrations to understand which parts of improvement plans were implemented.Trade ReviewThis is an introduction to White’s work built on exhaustive research ... There is much insight here on White and on the way in which landscape designers were commissioned and operated that is rare in writing on this period … Despite his successful and prolific career White has not been the primary subject of attention until now. In this book Turnbull and Wickham have filled the gap and provided researchers with a thorough survey of his work and career. * Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Lands *Over 60 of his beautifully executed coloured plans survive, which is a testament to the value his clients placed on them. This book makes available for the first time over 90% of the known plans and surveys by White for England. * Yorkshire Gardens Trust *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of figures Abbreviations Chapter 1 Thomas White in context Chapter 2 Early career and working with Brown Chapter 3 First commissions: 1765–8 Chapter 4 Established landscape designer: 1769–80 Chapter 5 Later career: 1781–1803 Chapter 6 Getting the commission Chapter 7 His landscape designs Chapter 8 Working methods Chapter 9 Arboricultural activities Chapter 10 Thomas White in Scotland by Christopher Dingwall Chapter 11 White’s sites in England 11.1 Armley 11.2 Belle Isle 11.3 Blyborough 11.4 Brocklesby 11.5 Burton Constable 11.6 Busby 11.7 Campsall 11.8 Carlton 11.9 Colwick 11.10 Copgrove 11.11 Fryston 11.12 Goldsborough 11.13 Grimston Garth 11.14 Grove 11.15 Harewood 11.16 Hawksworth 11.17 Holme 11.18 Houghton 11.19 Kirkleatham 11.20 Lumley 11.21 Mulgrave 11.22 Newby 11.23 Norton 11.24 Owston 11.25 Raby 11.26 Scarisbrick 11.27 Sedbury 11.28 Skelton Castle 11.29 Sledmere 11.30 Welton 11.31 Workington 11.32 Others – Kilnwick and Stapleton Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisBased on a decade of archaeological investigation and historical research, this book tells the story of the Copes of Hanwell Castle in north Oxfordshire and the creation of a garden with links to the development of scientific thinking in Oxford in the late seventeenth century. New research using Robert Plot’s Natural History of Oxfordshire as a starting point has uncovered details of a remarkable family and their rise and tragic downfall, their social circle, that included some great names in the development of early scientific thinking, and their garden that in effect became a place dedicated to the wonders of technology.The complex tale weaves together the activities of a royalist agent, Richard Allestree, a prodigious musician, Thomas Baltzar, John Claridge, a Hanwell Shepherd with a penchant for weather forecasting, and Sir Anthony Cope who in an atmosphere of secrecy and distrust began to gather together a community that eventually was named by Plot as The New Atlantis, a reference to a book published earlier in the century by Sir Francis Bacon in which he suggests a model for a Utopian science-focused society.The book also chronicles the programme of archaeological excavation that has uncovered several unusual garden features and, most significantly of all, describes in detail the unique collection of seventeenth-century terracotta garden urns, an assemblage that is unparalleled in post-medieval archaeology. This collection was destroyed in a single episode of vandalism around 1675 and has been preserved in deeply buried deposits of mud and silt. Their analysis and reconstruction is opening new insights into the decorative schemes of seventeenth-century gardens. There is coverage of other gardens of the period and their surviving features as well as an examination of early science and how gardens impacted on its development in many ways.Table of ContentsPreface: Robert Plot and Sir Anthony Cope 1. Introduction The Study of Gardens in Theory and Practice Hanwell: Geology, Geography, Archaeology and History 2. The Sixteenth Century William Cope and the Building of Hanwell House The Origins of Early Modern Water Gardens Water Gardens in the Sixteenth Century 3. The Seventeenth Century Continental Engineers and their Influence The Copes in Ascendancy Walter Cope’s Water Maze Francis Bacon, Gardening and The New Atlantis Thomas Bushell and the Enstone Marvels Other Early Seventeenth-Century Water Gardens 4. At Hanwell House The Archaeology of the Gardens 1600-1660 Sir Anthony Cope, the Fourth Baronet Sir Anthony Cope in his Social Setting Hanwell, Cope and Plot Sir Anthony’s Companions The Archaeology of the Gardens 1660-1675 Reconstructing the House of Diversion The Hanwell Pots and Other Finds 5. The End of it All The Aftermath, the Family and Estate after 1675 The Archaeology of the Gardens from 1675 to the Present Day 6. Oxford, Science and Gardening Oxford, Hanwell and Early Scientific Thinking Gardens and Science The Tangley Mystery and Hanwell as the New Atlantis Conclusions

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