Product Description

Overlooking the sea on the Franco/Italian Riviera, La Mortola remains one of the most famous botanical gardens in the world. Behind these gardens lies the fascinating story of Sir Thomas Hanbury, an English cloth merchant in China for nearly twenty years before returning to Europe to settle with his wife and fortune. A Quaker philanthropist and great lover of plants, Thomas Hanbury not only donated Wisley - the pre-eminent show garden in Britain - to the Royal Horticultural Society, but established The Giardini Botanici Hanbury, known as La Mortola in 1867. Gardener and writer Alasdair Moore traces the footsteps of Thomas Hanbury, a man who is revered in the gardening world, but about whom relatively little is documented generally, in a lively and utterly absorbing book. With unique access to Hanbury family documents and an expert?s knowledge of the copious unusual and exotic plants that La Mortola encompasses, Moore brings to life not only an extraordinary individual but his remarkable garden and its place in the history of nearby Ventimiglia, where Hanbury built schools for local children and in which to this day streets remain named in his honour.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #382479 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

About the Author
Following a BA Hons degree in English Literature, Alasdair Moore became a gardener at Queen's Park in London. In 1992 he was awarded the annual studentship at the renowned Tresco Abbey Gardens, Isles of Scilly, before training at the Royal Horticultural Society, Wisley. He worked with the National Trust and Marilyn Abbot at West Green House in Hampshire until 1995, when he returned to Trexco Abbey Gardens as Assistant-Head Gardener until 2003. In 1997 Moore was the recipient of a Winston Churchill Fellowship to study the Protea family in South Africa, the flora of which is his particular passion. He has led a series of garden tours to the Riviera, Madeira and South Africa as well as lecturing at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he also achieved a diploma in Botanic Garden Management. Moore is a regular contributor to 'Gardens Illustrated' and has written about gardening for the 'Saturday Independent' and the 'Daily Telegraph'.

Excerpted from La Mortola: In the Footsteps of Thomas Hanbury (In the Footsteps) by Alasdair Moore. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
'Clapham Common appears an unlikely site of inspiration for the garden at La Mortola, but it was there that both Daniel and Thomas learned and developed an early appreciation of botany. The Common was a different entity then, lying beyond the London streets, the last vague suburb before the countryside proper began. Surrounded by farmland, it was wilder than it is now, with trees arranged in copses rather than lines. Thomas was a keen shot and spent many hours roaming the Common with a gun, shooting rabbits.'

Customer Reviews

What a great book!
I wasn't sure I was going to like this, since I don't know a great deal about gardening and had never heard of Sir Thomas Hanbury, but actually I found it fascinating.
Hanbury was one of those extraordinary Victorians. Born in Clapham he went out to Shanghai as a young man at the height of the Opium Wars to make his fortune. But unlike most of his compatriots Hanbury was a Quaker of high moral principle who thought the British treated the Chinese appalingly and wasn't afraid to stand up for what he thought was right. The Chinese came to adore him, since he did everything he could to help and support them. The British were less keen, but he was so successful (and stubborn) they had to listen to what he said.
Having made his money, Hanbury then got married and retired to the Italian Riviera where he set about creating a fantastic garden called La Mortola, one of the finest in Europe.
Moore seems to be the first person to have access to the Hanbury family archives and he tells the story of this unusual and impressive man brilliantly. It's not a crade-to-grave kind of biography. Moore deftly weaves the narrative around the creation of the garden, revealing Hanbury's complex personal life and family, together with the wider historical picture - especially in China - and his intense love of horticulture.
Although he's a gardening expert, Moore wears his knowledge lightly. He writes superbly about the garden today: you really feel like you've walked it with him.
This is one of those books that really reveals a hidden chapter in history to you.