Product Description

For over a century, Country Life magazine has been an influential force in the world of garden design. The very first gardening article was published on 6 March 1897, and from the beginning, its illuminating weekly essays on houses and gardens sought to educate and influence taste. Superbly illustrated with specially commissioned photographs, and covering a broad spectrum of gardens and styles, the magazine has built up an unrivalled archive ? a unique repository of architectural and gardening history. These archives are the source for this selection of gardens, long since disappeared, and the poignant photographs that capture them forever in their heyday. The ephemeral nature of gardens means that they can very easily become ?lost?. Some of the examples featured in this book have so metamorphosed over decades as to be unrecognisable today from their original concept; some belonged to great country houses which were demolished or burnt down; others were neglected or abandoned in the economic and social changes in the aftermath of the First World War; others still fell out of fashion to be replaced by more up-to-date designs. Some of these gardens have not completely disappeared; parts of the infrastructure may survive, but the original intention and spirit have long since vanished. The forty-five lost English gardens illustrated in this book are organised by region and they cover a wide range of period and style from the late 1890s through the 1930s, revealing the magic of Victorian and Edwardian garden design. Here is St Catherine?s Court, with its once resplendent turf stairway; the magnificent cedars and immaculate bowling green at Campsea Ashe; the great arcaded hedges at Muntham Court; and the impressive topiary gardens of Brockenhurst Park. Here, too, are some of the great rock gardens, immensely fashionable in the 1880s, such as Swaylands in Kent, and the cliff-top garden at Bawdsey Manor in Suffolk. Beautifully reproduced in duotone, the 160 photographs bear testament to the rich and varied heritage of English gardens and of the people who created them. Kathryn Bradley-Hole has revisited most of the locations and her carefully researched, perceptive text explains their background and their fate.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #121347 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Roy Strong, Country Life, May 20, 2004
'This is a book I have been waiting for ... delectable ... a feast'

Sunday Telegraph, May 30, 2004
'A fascinating, if melancholic, tribute to 45 gardens'

Customer Reviews

A glimpse at another world.
Here, captured in some top class black and white photography, is the world of L.P. Hatrley's excellent novel "The go-between." Whilst I must admit to knowing nothing about gardening, there is something very sad about the photogtaphs of these gardens that either no longer exist or have been greatly reduced in size that makes this book so compelling. Most of the pictures date from the turn of the last century, although there are a handful from as late as the 1930's. The pictures in this lavish book evoke another world that was lost in the years after the First World War when it no longer became economical to employ an army of gardeners. Not since The Black Death had the fortunes of the ruling classes been so affected. Some of the gardens are now either hotels or parts of colleges. Many have gone forever, such as Drakelowe Hall in Derbyshire that became a power station. This is by no means the most tragic story.
As one would expect from Country Life, the quality of the images is truly amazing - some of the earliest having a misty quality about them that adds to the sense of melancholia. The fact that these pictures are not in colour only makes them more intriguing. Where there are people in the photographs, this makes the gardens look even more remote from our time. How could people actually afford to live in these houses ?
In conclusion, this is a wonderful book and one that I shall no doubt keep returning to. There isn't one garden in this book of which I am not envious !!