English Garden Eccentrics

#englishgarden #eccentrics
In collaboration with the Paul Mellon Centre, this video by Shelbourne Films captures some of the extraordinary sculpted greenery featured in Todd Longstaffe-Gowan's new book, "English Eccentric Gardens: Three Hundred Years of Extraordinary Groves, Burrowings, Mountains and Menageries."
In his book, Longstaffe-Gowan reveals a series of obscure and eccentric English garden-makers who, between the early seventeenth and the early twentieth centuries, created intensely personal and idiosyncratic gardens. They include such fascinating characters as the superstitious antiquary William Stukeley and the animal-and-bird-loving Lady Read, as well as the celebrated master of Vauxhall Gardens, Jonathan Tyers, who created at his home at Denbies, one of the gloomiest and most perverse anti-pleasure gardens in Georgian England. Others built miniature mountains, shaped topiaries, displayed exotic animals, excavated caves and assembled architectural fragments and fossils to realise their gardens in a way that was often thought to be excessive.
Topiary appeared in English gardens in the 16th century - and no-one is quite sure why. Very few original topiaries survive today, but the East Bedfont peacocks and the pleasure gardens of Elvaston Castle are wonderful examples. Enjoy the film - and please share with any eccentric gardeners you may know!