The Gardens at Hampton Court Palace
by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan
Frances Lincoln, £25, pp. 208, ISBN 0711223688
The Gardens at Hatfield
by Sue Snell, with an introduction by the Dowager Lady Salisbury
Frances Lincoln, £25, pp. 192, ISBN 0711225168
In 1979 the first major exhibition on the history of British gardening was staged at the Victoria & Albert Museum. It was a landmark, signalling the emergence of garden history, already pioneered in part by the young Garden History Society (now in its 40th year), as a serious academic discipline. Since then the subject has become established within the realms of academe and a torrent of literature has followed.
That year I produced The Renaissance Garden in England, the first attempt to chart from original sources the emergence of the palace and great garden from 1485 to 1642. But things have moved on a long way since and it is good to see someone at long last returning to the subject, bringing to bear on it all that has happened in the last 25 years.
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