The Tudor Garden

We all have a romantic idea of what Tudor Gardens were like, but given that there aren’t any surviving examples perhaps much of what we think is based on the imagination of later historians and gardeners. Were they all chocolate box knot gardens, herbs and box hedging? This series of lectures will explore some of the evidence for the real thing. We’ll investigate how the ending of the Wars of the Roses, and even more importantly the discovery by Europeans of the Americas and the sea route to India transformed English gardens. We’ll examine the magnificent royal palaces and gardens and discover how they were emulated not just by the aristocracy but also by “new men”, who’ve left an amazing legacy of country houses and estates. We’ll look at what they grew and how, what garden features emerged, where the ideas came from, and how all this was financed. We’ll also look at how gardens were represented in literature and art and the impact that had on later ideas of the Tudor age. This is the age when the English obsession with gardens and gardening really began- so come and find out how and why it happened!

This ticket is for the entire course of 8 sessions.

Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the first talk, which will be the same link throughout (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.

Provisional outline programme (each talk will be approximately 1 hour, with additional time allowed for Q & A afterwards):

Jan 7th: Introduction: Evidence, Ideas & Symbolism -Jill & David

Jan 14th: Tudor Royal and Elite Gardens - David

Jan 21st: Tudor Gardening Books - Jill

Jan 28th: What was in the Tudor Garden - David

Feb 4th: The Growing Obsession with Gardening - David

Feb 11th: The Tudor Gardener – Jill

Feb 18th: The Tudor Garden as a seat of hospitality – Jill

Feb 25th: The Tudor Gardens in Literature and Art – Jill & David

Jill Francis is an early modern historian, specialising in gardens and gardening in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries. She teaches history at the University of Birmingham and the University of Worcester and contributes to the MA programme on West Midlands History at Birmingham. She is an occasional lecturer on the IHR Garden and Landscape History programme and is becoming increasing involved with the Gardens’ Trust online provision. She also works at the Shakespeare Institute Library in Stratford-upon-Avon. Her first book, Gardens and Gardening in Early Modern England and Wales, was published by Yale University Press in June 2018.

After a career as a head teacher in Inner London, David Marsh took very early retirement (the best thing he ever did) and returned to education on his own account and did an MA and then a PhD in garden history. Now he lectures on garden history anywhere that will listen to him and helps organize the Garden History Seminar at London University’s Institute of Historical Research. He is co-chair of the Education and Events Committee of The Gardens Trust, for whom he organises courses and writes a weekly garden history blog which you can find at The Gardens Trust Blog .