IN 1976, Rosemary and John Nicholson visited the graveyard of the church of St Maryat-Lambeth to see the tomb of the John Tradescants, celebrated 17th-century gardeners, explorers and antiquaries. They found a sarcophagus carved with fantastic evocations of the distant lands where the father and son travelled in search of plants for our gardens and exhibits for their Ark in Lambeth: England’s first museum to be opened to the public.
Nearby stood the tomb of another collector of exotics, William Bligh, surmounted by a sculpture of breadfruit, saplings of which he was endeavouring to transport from Tahiti to the Caribbean on HMS Bounty when his crew decided otherwise.
Here were two profoundly significant relics of our horticultural past and yet they were overgrown, neglected. Still more dismaying, the church, whose roots in this Thames-side site antedated the Norman Conquest, had been decommissioned, allowed to fall derelict and doomed to demolition. The Nicholsons determined on a course of campaigning and funding appeals that succeeded in saving St Mary’s and enabling them to convert it into the world’s first museum of garden history.
Denne historien er fra Decenber 06, 2017-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra Decenber 06, 2017-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
