Search Help
General Web Site Search
'Quick search' (found top left, under the banner, of every main page of this web site) enables you to do a basic search for our database records of historic parks, gardens and designed landscape sites and the people historically associated with them, or to search for other web site content.
To use Quick search:
1) Select whether you want to search for 'Sites and people' or for 'Other web site content.'
2) Type your search word or phrase into the Quick Search box (which is labelled 'Type search text here').
3) Click on the 'Go' button.
Note: The 'Sites and people' option refers to the records on our database which give detailed descriptions of historic parks, gardens and designed landscapes or the people historically associated with them.
The 'Other web site content' consists of news, articles, interviews, educational resources and in-depth profiles of contemporary and historical people.
Further help on Quick Search is available in Quick Search Help, under the Quick Search box.
The Advanced Search option can be used to make a very detailed search of all records in the database, and there is additional Help on that page.
Map Based Location Search provides an interactive map of the United Kingdom showing the locations of all the Parks and Gardens on our database. NOTE: If you are using a dial-up modem internet connection you may experience some delay when using the map-based search.
Advanced Search
Advanced Search: enables you to focus your search on specific records and terms within our database, for example, to find all records relating to sites within a certain period by a particular designer.
The search form is split into four main sections; What, Where, Who and When.
Use:
- What to search for parks and gardens of a specific type.
- Where to find parks and gardens in a specific area.
- Who to search for people or organisations associated with parks and gardens.
- When to search for parks, gardens, people or references in a specific period or date range.
You can enter terms in one, several or all sections. Any search text boxes with a "Choose" button next to them will auto-complete when you start typing words in them, or will bring up a list of terms from which you can choose.
If you are not sure about what term you want to enter, you can look at and select terms from a list by using "Choose" buttons.
If you click on the "Choose" button, a list of terms will appear. To select a term, click on the green underlined word/s.
Many terms will have a "+" button to the left of them. Click on the "+" button to get a list of narrower terms (it becomes a "-" button which you can click on to close the list of narrower terms).
To select a narrower term, click on the green underlined words.
Any of these types of searches may be combined, for example, you can combine "walled garden" as a type of site with the period term "18th century" to find records of 18th century walled gardens.
You will see several tick-boxes at the foot of the form. Use these to restrict the search to the type of records in which you are interested.
Searching by What:
Parks/gardens sites: we have categorised most of these sites according to one or more of the following:
- Form (or Type);
- Current Use;
- Plant Type/Environment;
- Site context or main building;
- Style
These can be used singly or in combination to narrow down the search for sites with particular characteristics.
Features: we have categorised these under broad types. There are 3 or 4 levels of narrow terms below many of the broad features terms.
Searching by Where:
All search fields in this section, except for "City/town/village" and "Postcode," are local authority areas. We have used the Office of National Statistics official lists of administrative areas in the United Kingdom for these.
Postcode search: note that this will only find sites that have official postcodes since many sites do not have postal deliveries, so do not have postcodes.
Searching by Who:
This section enables you to search for records of people or organisations associated with the historic parks and gardens sites. These may be historical or contemporary.
"Occupation" refers to a person’s occupation that may or may not be related to a park/garden.
"Role of person" refers to the role that a person had relating to a specific site or sites.
"Role of organisation" refers to the role that an organisation has/had relating to a specific site or sites. Organisations include advisory or statutory bodies, special interest groups, as well as owners, builders etc.
Searching by When:
This section enables you to search for different types of records by date, for example, sites or features created in a specific year or period, people alive within a specific period, or reference sources published between specific years.
Either select a term from the list of periods accessed by clicking the "Choose" button;
Or, type in the earliest year (for example, 1800) in the appropriate "Start Date" box, and latest year (for example, 1875) in the appropriate "End Date" box.
How to use the map search
To start your map search for sites either:
- Zoom in on the area you want to see by using the slider scale on the top left of the map (+ to zoom in, - to zoom out) and the four compass arrows to move around the map.
- Once you zoom in close enough you will see a number of leaf icons showing the position of each site.
or
- Select a County or Local Authority from the drop-down list provided. This will bring up a map showing all sites in or around that County.
- You can then zoom in or out, or move around using the compass arrows.
To see the name of a site, just click on the leaf icon.
Click on the site name to bring up the record for that site.
Viewing maps
You can select how you view the map from the buttons in the top right corner of a map. There are three different views:
- ‘map’ – this is the normal view and shows map information only;
- 'satellite' – this is the aerial photograph view, or by clicking on the
- 'hybrid' – this combines the satellite and map views, showing the map image as outlines over the aerial photograph.
The level of detail shown in the satellite images is variable and is beyond our control.
Please note that because of the large amount of information needed for these maps, users with dial-up modem internet connections may experience some delays when using the map-based search.
We are aware that some site locations are only approximate at present. We are working through our records to make these as precise as possible but this will take some time to complete.
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Anglesey Abbey England, Lode.
Formal and landscaped gardens of 47 hectares (116 acres) dating from 1926 onwards, surround the former 13th-century Augustinian priory. The garden features a notable collection of statuary, herbaceous borders, a dahlia garden, island shrub beds, and arboretums of conifers and deciduous trees.
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Birkenhead Park England, Wirral.
Birkenhead Park is a mid-19th-century public park occupying 90 hectares. It features parkland, woodland and meadows as well as two lakes and sports facilities.
It is reputed to be the oldest public park in England, and elements of its design occur in Central Park, New York.
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Claremont England, Esher.
Claremont has 18th-century landscaped pleasure grounds and a park. Features include a lake, amphitheatre, grotto and water pavilion.
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Craig y parc Wales, Cardiff.
The house and garden are integrated into a strongly axial design, taking full advantage of the southward slope. The garden survives in its entirety, is well preserved, and is a very good example of this type of architectural Edwardian garden.
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Hall Place, Bexley England, Dartford.
Hall Place is a Grade I listed manor house surrounded by extensive parkland on the banks of the River Cray at Bexley. There are formal gardens around the house, with topiary and herbaceous borders. The walled gardens contain a plant nursery.
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Hestercombe England, Taunton.
Hestercombe House is set in 120 hectares of parkland. There is a formal garden of around 3 hectares beside the house, designed by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll from 1904 to 1908. There is also a landscaped valley behind the house of around 13.5 hectares, created by Coplestone Warre Bampfylde between 1750 and 1790.
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Howick England, Alnwick.
Howick has an early-20th-century woodland garden set within 35 acres of 19th-century wooded pleasure grounds and a 50-hectare late-18th-century parkland.
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Iscoyd Park Wales, Grindley Brook.
Iscoyd Park is a complete, small 18th-century park, although its origins could be much earlier. It has fine specimen trees such as oak, beech and sycamore, and a pond with a mount next to it. The park was enlarged in the 19th century and boundary oak paling erected at that time. There are pleasure grounds around the house.
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Little Sodbury Manor England, South Gloucestershire.
Little Sodbury Manor is a garden on a 15th-century site. There are a number of gardens, including a formal garden and a sunken garden. There are also ponds, a kitchen garden, bowling green and many mature trees.
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Prior Park England, Bath.
Prior Park is a landscaped pleasure grounds and park, laid out from 1734 on by Ralph Allen with advice from Pope to 1743. There are terraced balustraded steps by Goodridge, dating from 1834. These replaced terraces by Allen and Pope. Other features include a Palladian bridge, two gate lodges and a grotto.
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Sydney Gardens England, Bath.
Sydney Gardens occupy a 4 hectare elongated hexagon-shaped site in a residential area to the north-east of Bath. The gardens were opened as a public pleasure ground on the 11th May 1795. They have since been subject to a series of alterations.
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Mayfield Park England, Southampton.
Mayfield Park is a municipal park in the south-east of Southampton with wooded gardens, a walled garden and playing fields.
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Dumbleton Old Hall England, Dumbleton.
The site has humps and hollows in a grass field, the remains of a formal garden which surrounded the 1690s house. An engraving of Dumbleton Hall by Johannes Kip in 1712 shows a formal landscape. A new information panel shows very clearly where the original canals and walkways shown in the Kip engraving were.
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Glandyfi Castle Wales, Machynlleth.
Glandyfi Castle is a Regency gothic castle built on a commanding site overlooking the Dyfi estuary. It has a walled kitchen garden, a setting of mature deciduous woodland, exotic shrubs, lawns and borders.
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Easton Lodge Gardens England, Bishop's Stortford.
The gardens of Easton Lodge, designed by Harold Peto in 1902, include an Italianate garden, Japanese garden, formal lawns and flower beds, and a rose walk. The gardens have been under restoration since the 1970s.
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Glyn Aur Wales, Abergwili, Carmarthen.
Glyn Aur was a cottage garden with extensive topiary, much of it representing biblical figures and events. It was sometimes known as the Garden of Eden. The garden was open in its heyday but is now sadly lost. There are, however, a number of old postcards based on photographs taken by the then owner, which show the full glory of the topiary.
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Brooksby Hall England, Melton Mowbray.
Brooksby Hall is set in 31 acres of grounds, sloping northwards down to the River Wreake. The estate is the country campus of Brooksby Melton College of Further Education and offers training in a wide range of country skills. It was formerly the county agricultural college. The Hall, originally a late 16th Century country house, was extended in the late 19th century. It houses administrative offices for the College as well as offering conference, banqueting and wedding facilities. In the grounds to the south of the Hall, is the Church of St Michael, which dominates the landscape. Modern college buildings, dating from the 1950s to 1970s are located to the north and east of the Hall. The gardens, which are informal in style, include a lake and a stream. The wide range of planting reflects the College's status as a horticultural college.
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Glenfall House England, Charlton Kings.
Glenfall House has a stream garden through a glen with waterfalls. It is partly accessible under Defra's Farm Conservation Scheme until September 2014. The garden has been supplemented by terraces designed by Norman Jewson.
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James Backhouse (3) was a nurseryman and alpine specialist active in the 19th century. He was a member of the noted Backhouse family of horticulturalists and naturalists and a member of the Society of Friends.
Backhouse was born in Darlington, England on 8 July 1794, the son of James Backhouse (2) (1757-1804).
In 1815, together with his brother, Thomas Backhouse (1792-1845), James Backhouse established James Backhouse & Son of York (and later of Leeds), a plant nursery first based at Telford Nursery, York, on what was once the old York Friars Gardens owned by the Telford family.
James married Deborah Lowe (1793-1827) of Worcester in November 1822. Deborah had been very ill when she was young, and suffered ill-health after her marriage to James. She died at the age of 34 on 10 December 1827, and was memorialised by her husband in A Memoir of Deborah Backhouse of York, 1828.
In 1831, Backhouse embarked on a combined missionary tour and plant collecting expedition of Australia, Mauritius and southern Africa, leaving his two young children in the care of family. During his decade abroad, he corresponded with his friends and family in England, including his brother Thomas who was managing and developing the nursery in his absence.
In 1851, together with his son, James (4) (1825-1890), he travelled to Norway. The two also toured the Arctic Circle and several parts of Great Britain in search of plants. Backhouse died in 1869.
Sources:
Backhouse, James, A Memoir of Deborah Backhouse of York; Who Died the Tenth of the Twelfth Month, 1827; Aged Thirty-four Years (W. Alexander & Son, York, 1828).
Davis, Peter, ?Backhouse family (per. c.1770–1945)?, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/56500> [accessed
21 Nov 2008]- 'The Backhouses of Weardale, Co. Durham, and Sutton Court, Hereford: Their Botanical and Horticultural Interests', Garden History, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Spring, 1990), pp. 57-68.
Hadfield, Miles, Robert Harling and Leonine Highton, British Gardeners: A Biographical Dictionary (London: A. Zwemmer Ltd., 1980), p. 19.
Further reading:
Mary Bartram Trott, 'Backhouse, James (1794 - 1869)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1 (Melbourne University Press, 1966), pp 45-46.
Also online at: Mary Bartram Trott, 'Backhouse, James (1794 - 1869)', Australian Dictionary of Biography at http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010042b.htm [accessed 12/01/2009] .
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Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, 4th Earl of Cork
Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, was an architect and garden designer, a major landowner in Ireland and in England, and a great patron of the arts, active in the 18th century.
In England he had houses at Londesborough, in London's Piccadilly and at Chiswick. Boyle was born at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, England on 25 April 1694. He died on 3 December 1753 at Chiswick and was buried in the family vault at Londesborough on 15 December 1753. Boyle is particularly noted for his patronage of William Kent and for his promotion of the revival of the Palladian style.
Sources:
Colvin, Howard, A Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 3rd edition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 147-152.
Kingsbury, Pamela Denman, ?Boyle, Richard, third earl of Burlington and fourth earl of Cork (1694–1753)?, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008) <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3136> [accessed 21 Nov 2008]
Further Reading:
Carre, Jacques, 'Lord Burlington's Garden at Chiswick', Garden History, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Summer, 1973), pp. 23-30.
Eleanor Coade - artist in artificial stone
Eleanor Coade was a remarkable woman who rose to the top of the male-dominated trade of artificial stone-making in the 18th century. Her own brand of stone was widely used in some of the best gardens of the day. Timur Tatlioglu looks at her contribution to the art of garden ornamentation.
Dales Plants and Gardens 1900-1960: project methodology
‘Dales Plants and Gardens 1900-1960’ is a volunteer-run oral history project, which began in October 2007. They are recording people's memories of food plants gathered and grown during the first half of the 20th century in Swaledale, Arkengarthdale and Wensleydale.
Volunteer Sally Reckert writes about the methodology that they have developed for the project to research and record the small gardens and allotments.
How are historic parks and gardens protected?
Protection of historic landscapes in the United Kingdom.
The Backhouse Nursery of York 1815 - 1955
The history of this once-famous Yorkshire nursery and its owners encapsulates many aspects of British culture and economics over a period of 200 years.
The founders were born in the 18th century and came from a widely connected Northern English Quaker family amongst whom were many keen botanists. In the 19th century the nursery was famous in Britain and abroad as suppliers of trees, garden plants and seeds.
- The Victorian writer and designer John Claudius Loudon has been described as the ‘father of the English garden’1. Louise Wickham looks at his work and contribution to the British garden.
The people who have shaped historic landscapes across the UK
Writers, poets, painters and philosophers as well as gardeners, designers, owners and horticulturalists have helped to shape the UK’s historic parks and gardens over the last 1000 years.
Many of the landscapes that they inspired or created can still be enjoyed today, and where they have disappeared their historic legacy lives on.
Influential designed landscapes in the UK
Designed landscapes have played a key role in the landscape for centuries. While many people associate them with country houses of the 18th and 19th centuries, they have in fact a much more complex history which links them with the visual arts such as painting and sculpture as well as literary traditions and authors, such as Jane Austen, with whom the 18th-century heyday of the country house and its parkland landscape has become synonymous.
Alan Barber: champion of the people's parks
Alan Barber, who died in February 2011, fought for many years to reverse the late 20th-century decline in public parks. Sarah Jackson talked to him in 2008 about his experiences at the heart of the system and the need for root-and-branch reform.
An Overview of Research and Recording Practice
This overview provides a basic introduction to researching and recording historic designed landscapes. It explains what kinds of places the term 'historic designed landscapes' includes, why they should be recorded, how to research and record them, and where to find further information.
Mavis Batey: from codebreaker to campaigner for historic parks and gardens
Mavis Batey, literary and garden historian, talks to Sarah Jackson about how she became interested in historic designed landscapes, and involved in campaigning to conserve them.
© Copyright Parks and Gardens Data Services Ltd. 2007
'Sep 23rd 2011 to Apr 1st 2012' - Garden Museum gallery exhibition
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