Overview of the project

Parks & Gardens UK is a web resource dedicated to historic designed landscapes across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Parks & Gardens UK consists of a secure database linked to a public website, giving online access to thousands of records on historic parks and gardens contributed by the UK's 37 gardens trusts and other heritage organisations, such as English Heritage, Cadw, Historic Scotland and the Northern Ireland Heritage Gardens Committee.

The project was set up in 2005 as a joint venture between the Association of Gardens Trusts and the University of York, and is now managed by Parks and Gardens Data Services (PGDS), a not-for-profit company and charity. The initial development of this web resource was supported by a grant of nearly £1million from the Heritage Lottery Fund with contributions in-kind by volunteers and members of the Association of Gardens Trusts. A project board directs Parks & Gardens UK, the members of which are all directors of PGDS and provide representation of the Association of Gardens Trusts and the University of York. They oversee the work of the project team and are assisted with advice and guidance from a number of experts and heritage organisation representatives.

The web resource went live in autumn 2007 and was under continued development throughout 2009. Today some 6,500 site records and more than 2,000 people records are available online. Digitised maps, plans and images also compliment many of the records. The information in the database will continue to grow as new research becomes available. Many volunteers remain active and have moved on to doing new research. As well as providing access to the database, the web resource features a range of educational resources on aspects of the design, social history, conservation, and people involved with historic designed landscapes. These are aimed at a variety of audiences, including academic researchers, professionals, students of all ages, lifelong learners, garden owners and tourists.

Volunteers on a training day at Bolton Hall, North Yorkshire.

In addition to working closely with volunteers in gardens trusts across England and Wales, Parks & Gardens UK is also recruiting and training new volunteers across the UK to carry out research on historic parks and gardens that interest them, and contribute their findings to Parks & Gardens UK. To find out more, see Research & Record.

Parks & Gardens UK has a multi-layered system of quality control to ensure the accuracy of information on the database:

• Volunteers and Gardens Trusts are asked to review their records carefully before submission and upon publication to the website.
• Our data entry team are well qualified in the subject area, as well as having strong data entry experience.
• An extensive thesaurus controls key fields in the database to ensure consistency of terminology.
• An editor spot-checks database entries for grammatical accuracy and consistency.
• Consultant garden historians have screened approximately one in six records for accuracy, quality and correct terminology.
• Contributors can check the published records and submit corrections as necessary at any time.

We are grateful for the help, support and advice given to Parks & Gardens UK by:

The Association of Gardens Trusts http://www.gardenstrusts.org.uk/

Cadw http://www.cadw.wales.gov.uk/

Culture24 http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/

English Heritage http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/

The European Garden Heritage Network http://cmsen.eghn.org/

The Garden History Society (England and Scotland) http://www.gardenhistorysociety.org/

The gardens trusts of England and Wales http://gardenstrusts.org.uk/new/county_trusts.asp

Hampshire County Council http://www.hants.gov.uk/

The Heritage Lottery Fund http://www.hlf.org.uk/

The Historic Houses Association http://www.hha.org.uk/

Historic Scotland http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/

Manchester Metropolitan University  http://www.mmu.ac.uk/

The National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies
http://www.nadfas.org.uk/

The National Trust http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/

The National Trust for Scotland  http://www.nts.org.uk/

The Northern Ireland Heritage Gardens Committee http://www.nihgc.org/

Plant Heritage (formerly The National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens) http://www.nccpg.com/

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales http://www.rcahmw.gov.uk/

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland http://www.rcahms.gov.uk/

The University of Bristol http://www.bristol.ac.uk/

The University of York http://www.york.ac.uk/