Yearly Archives: 2008

The Principles of Garden Design

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The Principles of Garden Design, eBook by Tom TurnerI had an idea for a book on the principles of garden design about 20 years ago. The publishers I offered it to (Mitchel Beazley, Francis Lincoln and Conran Octopus) each invited to me meet them and said it was a ‘very interesting idea’. But they did not sign me up and the idea went on the back burner. Some of the content went into the final section of City as landscape (Spon 1998) and when the idea returned to the boil in 2008 I decided to do an eBook. It is now available under the Gardenvisit.com imprint: The Principles of Garden Design, Tom Turner (ISBN 978-0-9542306-2-3, 45 pages, 130 illustrations, 2008). Comments would be most welcome and journalists can request review copies.

The basis of the book is that Garden Design is much subject to the Vitruvian principles as any other field of design, though they need to be adapted. In short:

  • Gardens should be beautiful
  • Gardens should be useful
  • Gardens should be well made with good materials

These points are discussed with 130 illustrations and I am puzzled as to why they are not already embedded in the literature of garden design. Idle chat about ‘year round interest’, a ‘blaze of colour’, ‘focal points’, ‘specimen plants’, ‘water features’ etc is all very well – but it is no substitute for having a firm grasp of the principles of garden design. To draw an analogy with cooking, we can say that an over-reliance on recipes is no substitute for a grasp of the principles: use good materials, don’t overcook, take care with the sequence of dishes.

Garden design at Borde Hill paid for by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)

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I went to visit Borde Hill Garden in Sussex last Saturday. Since my last visit, it has acquired a so-called Italian Garden. It was funded by the UK Heritage Lottery Fund. Regrettably, it is of poor quality and cannot possibly, by any indecent stretch of the imagination be regarded as part of England’s Heritage. So why did the HLF pay for it?

The Borde Hill Garden Map calls it an “Italian Garden” and the signboard at Borde Hill states : “Italian Terraces. The Lower Terrace centred around the formal pool, started life as the family tennis court until it was converted by Robert Stephenson Clarke in 1982. From 1997 to 1999, and with financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, this part of the Garden was renovated and replanted following a design by award winner Robin Williams’…. We are endeavouring to improve the more formal atmosphere of the area.”

It is a dull rectangle of water with a small fountain, cheapish terracotta tubs, precast concrete slabs, good quality English park seats, a rough stone wall and a badly maintained box hedge. The rill which flows down the steps and through the slabs looks faintly Islamic. This raises several questions:

  1. Why should the garden be described as ‘Italian’? I have seen anything like it in Italy.
  2. Why should the Heritage Lottery Fund be paying for poor quality unhistorical garden designs?
  3. Why not adopt the historical solution and make the space into a tennis court, asking players to wear white flannels and eat cucumber sandwiches?
  4. Or why not go for a genuinely modern garden design?

The so-called Italian Garden at Borde HillThe What We Do page on the HLF Heritage Lottery Fund Website states that ‘The Heritage Lottery Fund is the UK’s leading funder of our diverse heritage and the only heritage organisation that operates both across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and funds the entire spread of heritage – including buildings, museums, natural heritage and the heritage of cultural traditions and language…We help groups and organisations of all sizes with projects that: conserve the UK’s diverse heritage for present and future generations to experience and enjoy;”. I was pleased that I could find no mention of Borde Hill in the HLF website and assume they are ashamed of having funded the work. In fact I would like to find a What We Regret Having Done page on the HLF website. They would earn Brownie Points for transparency, open government etc. We all make mistakes.