Annual Weekend Conference, Worcester College, Oxford
September 2011
Our hosts, Oxford Gardens Trust (founded in 2002) are a small, relatively new organisation yet, thanks to Sally Stradling and her team for their hard work, they packed a big punch. The AGT Weekend Conference was a resounding success, superb visits and explanatory lectures, first-class accommodation, refreshment, transport etc. OGT, our hosts deserve much praise. The prestigious venue, Worcester College, did not disappoint, set in peaceful gardens, wilderness and orchards, and planting that would bring joy to any passionate gardener, including contemporary dry gardens around the ultra-modern Sainsbury accommodation buildings.
Various booksellers did popular trade with gardening/ garden history books, before and after the AGM, which was very well attended, and introduced by AGT President Gilly Drummond. Barbara Simms was thanked for her work as she retired from the AGT Committee of Management, Joanne Kidd, Norfolk Gardens Trust, was voted on. Juliet Wilmott was thanked, retiring from being AGT Education Co-ordinator. Her place will be filled by teacher Emma Schofield, Lincolnshire Gardens Trust. It has been a busy, productive year, including planning two joint AGT/GHS study-days, and AGT working with NT, RHS and HHA in the ‘Opening All the Gates Project’ to make historic gardens more accessible to more people. In this concerning climate, funding is of course key. Delegates voted in favour of financing the final year of the 3-year Historic Landscape Project (£5,000) since Natural England had pulled out of final year funding.Also the forecast rise in 50p affiliation was voted through after considerable debate. AGT Chairman, Sally Walker, encouraged county gardens trusts to take out Trustee Indemnity Insurance for their trustees. AGT can now offer this at a very reasonable £25 p.a. in addition to their normal insurance scheme.
The pilot trial of the AGT Yearbook has been judged a success, so the 2012 yearbook will go ahead. County Gardens Trusts are asked to send in their 500-600-word articles, and high resolution digital images to editor Liz Robinson by December 1st. Dominic Cole, landscape architect and Chairman, Garden History Society, and Jonathan Lovie, GHS Senior Conservation Officer, were introduced to inform delegates about the progress made in ‘Working Together’, the ongoing 2-year Feasibility Study, and to highlight, besides closer collaboration and communication also with Parks and Gardens UK, and the Garden Museum, how the AGT, in particular, can co-operate with the GHS in events organisation, but most significantly in conservation, in speaking more effectively with ’one voice’ and providing more training to grass roots county gardens trusts.
Thanks to Joanna Matthews’s inspired choice of theme, ‘Power Gardening’ set an imaginative and thought-provoking tone for the weekend, focusing on the early eighteenth century gardens of four great generals, their friendship and their exploits in their gardens following battlefield campaigns in Europe. Richard Wheeler’s introductory lecture on Friday night was masterful blend of significant history, the influence of Versailles, the ‘Art of War’ in paintings and tapestries recalling Alexander the Great, Gothic politics, and titillating anecdotes about myths and statuary.
Next morning, arriving in Woodstock, the coach driver treated us to a grand arrival at Blenheim, through Hawksmoor’s Triumphal Arch, driving at snail’s pace so we could take in iconic views, Vanbrugh’s great palace and bridge set off by Capability Brown’s waters. Here in stables, excellently converted for educational and hospitality purposes, Richard Wheeler continued the theme, with a ‘tour de force’ talk about Rousham, unique among eighteenth century landscape gardens, Bridgeman later ‘softened’ by William Kent, and according to Walpole, Kent’s ‘most engaging’ work. Jeri Bapasola, Blenheim archivist, just as outstanding and authoritative, enlightened us, speeding through the centuries and sharing thoughts and plans from her remarkable research, (even a 1724 Stukeley panoramic drawing with Rosamund’s Well in the foreground) from her ground-breaking book on the history of Blenheim’s landscape, ‘The Finest View in England’. Many of us know these gardens already, but both talks made us all look afresh with ‘new eyes’. The rest of the day, in glorious sunshine, was spent happily visiting, dipping in and out of pleasurable, appraising conversations as we soaked in both great landscapes – (almost a route march, but worth it, in keeping with the theme!)
Sarah Rutherford and Jonathan Lovie led our groups, memorably ‘setting our faces towards Rousham’, reading extracts and taking the exact route as advised by Clary’s letter (1760) describing the gardens in minute detail, the gardener who, in 1737, laid out them out for General Dormer. From thoughts of victory and war including the sadly, ever contemporary, dying gladiator on the top terrace, to the Arcadian vale of gods and goddesses below in dappled light, welcomed by Flora and Ceres at the visitor’s entrance, down to the Cold Bath and (Narcissus’s ?) pool, serpentine rill and ‘laurel lawn’ amidst the trees (laurels clipped by hand at three foot high to make a remarkable greensward), with views across the river to the triumphal arch on the horizon, doing double duty as ‘gateway to heaven’, eternity. Rousham’s seemingly unchanging vistas speak to heart and mind. We returned through the walled garden, full of produce, colourful cutting flowers and herbaceous borders in bright sunlight, an invigorating contrast to what had been up to then, ‘green thoughts in a green shade’.
Back to Blenheim for lunch. The unusual wooden cobbles at the entrance caught my eye. The gardens, full of ‘pomp and power, were of course, buzzing with visitors.We managed to lose most of them by heading towards the 8-acre walled garden, before crossing the sea of lawn into the pleasure gardens, past smart new flowerbeds and rose arbour.
Finally we reached the Grand Cascade after winding through the trees. The necessary, major re-engineering of the dam has meant that three great plane trees have been felled, and shrubbery cleared, opening up great space, so much of the mystery of Brown’s engineering and the romance of this area has been compromised by the now overground spillway. A rubbish bin on the new viewing platform above the cascade (as also right beside the Dying Gladiator nearer the Palace), made me think that this was ‘Disneyworld UK’ rather than one of the world's greatest heritage landscapes. A heron on the cascade went some way to distracting me from the new rockwork stepped unnaturally either side, which I trust will soon weather down. Weary but happily to bed, after a splendid supper, and delightful entertainment, poetry and songs about gardens, from a talented group, (‘bright young things’!) ‘Live Canon’, who had gone to the trouble of commissioning a new piece about the Duke of Marlborough’s gardens. They were great fun.
Sunday dawned, unfortunately rainy, but spirits were not dampened as we set off expectantly, either for Heythrop led by Johnny Phibbs, or Shotover with Hilary Taylor. I chose the latter private estate, (the former, now a hotel, may be visited at any time), and felt it a real privilege to visit another early eighteenth century garden where time has stood still. Hilary’s informed, enjoyable explanation of the history of the park, the intrepid brolly-laden, cheerful AGT’ers tramping through the wet grass, the Buthan pine dripping with crystal raindrops, and the view of the white Gothic Temple at the end of the canal in the mist will stay with me for a long time, as indeed will the entire weekend. Farewells, thank you’s to OGT, and “look forward to seeing you next year” on our lips, we departed to all four corners of the country.
AGT weekend conferences are open to everyone, not just gardens trust representatives. Such was the friendly and open atmosphere contributed by both hosts and like-minded delegates, I suggest you book early for Avon Gardens Trust’s turn, with the theme ‘The Polite Society’, at Bath, 7-9 September 2012, which promises to be, just as Oxford, a real indulgence.
Steffie Shields