An Economic History of the English Garden

by Roderick Floud

' Roderick Floud's ground-breaking study of the history, money, places and personalities involved in British gardens over the past 350 years gives fascinating insight into why gardening is part of this country's soul .' Michael Heseltine, Deputy Prime Minister (1996-1997)'Thousands of books have been written about the history of British gardens but Roderick Floud, one of Britain's most distinguished economic historians, asks new and important how much did gardens cost to build and maintain, and where did the money come from? Superbly researched, it is full of information which will surprise both economists and gardeners. The book is fun as well as Floud shows us gardens grand and humble, and introduces us gardeners, plantsmen and technologies in wonderful varieties .' Jane Humphries, Centennial Professor, London School of EconomicsAt least since the seventeenth century, most of the English population have been unable to stop making, improving and dreaming of gardens. Yet in all the thousands of books about them, this is the first to address seriously the question of how much gardens and gardening have cost, and to work out the place of gardens in the economic, as well as the horticultural, life of the nation. It is a new kind of gardening history.Beginning with the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Roderick Floud describes the role of the monarchy and central and local government in creating gardens, as well as that of the (generally aristocratic or plutocratic) builders of the great gardens of Stuart, Georgian and Victorian England. He considers the designers of these gardens as both artists and businessmen - often earning enormous sums by modern standards, matched by the nurserymen and plant collectors who supplied their plants. He uncovers the lives and rewards of working gardeners, the domestic gardens that came with the growth of suburbs and the impact of gardening on technical developments from man-made lakes to central heating.AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH GARDEN shows the extraordinary commitment of money as well as time that the English have made to gardens and gardening over three and a half centuries. It reveals the connections of our gardens to the re-establishment of the English monarchy, the national debt, transport during the Industrial Revolution, the new industries of steam, glass and iron, and the built environment that is now all around us. It is a fresh perspective on the history of England and will open the eyes of gardeners - and garden visitors - to an unexpected dimension of what they do.

Genres: History, British Literature, Nonfiction, Gardening, Economics

416 pages, Paperback

First published November 7, 2019

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

You might be thinking "wow, niche" but in fact the author makes an excellent case for the economy of gardens being massively undercounted, in terms of spending, labour, and resources (land, water, manpower, travel) taken up. Loads of good examples and interesting case histories with some jawdropping skill and labour on display: the efficiency of Georgian hothouses was beyond belief.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as a follow up to a day school I did on Capability Brown, and found it really interesting to learn about just how much was spent on gardens and garden design especially from the 18th C onwards, and how garden related inventions fed into the Industrial and Agricultural revolutions. It was also fascinating to see how new planning schemes in the 20thC e.g. the expansion of the suburbs meant that gardening for pleasure was available to ordinary people as well as the rich.

[Christopher Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finding an enterprising author has produced a full-scale study of a major historical subject from a hitherto neglected angle is a rare pleasure. Discovering this book is one of those ‘why on earth didn’t anyone think of doing this before?’ literary experiences. It seems astonishing that such a glaring gap in the enormous literature on garden history could be found. Yet Roderick Floud has not just nimbly elbowed his way through a crowd of other writers in the field jostling for our attention: he has driven a gang mower to the front.

There are a host of books devoted to the English garden’s rich past ranging (to quote just a few examples) from descriptions of how individual grand gardens have evolved over the centuries, to more general shifts in garden fashion design, stories of intrepid plant-hunters seeking new treasures for gardens at home in remote and often dangerous corners of the world or the changing visions of the garden captured by generations of artists.

This makes it even more surprising that ‘Garden historians almost entirely ignore money’ – despite the fact that, as Floud points out: ‘spending money on gardens has been one of the greatest, and certainly most conspicuous, forms of expenditure on luxuries in England since the seventeenth century or earlier’. Such massive expenditure on gardens has created a major industry of nurseries, garden centres and landscaping contractors (with a combined current annual turnover of £11 billion), that provides hundreds of thousands of jobs and generates significant ripple effects upon the wider domestic economy and overseas trade. The funds lavished on gardens also stimulated huge scientific advances in plant breeding, together with driving technological progress in water engineering and central heating and encouraging the far more extensive use of glass and metal in building.

A comprehensive survey of its subject, this work will equip readers with a solid knowledge of how the English garden industry developed and the course it followed in the past four centuries, as well as identifying the factors that shaped these. However, this is also a book that is a delight just to dip into – although painted on a broad canvas it contains a vast array of interesting and often striking details, along with highly perceptive (and sometimes humorous) comments by the author.
I opened two pages at random: one of them describes the gruesome mantraps that were included in earlier gardeners’ ‘anti-pest’ armouries, while another sketches an experiment Floud carried out in his own garden by recording what he spent on it in the course of a year. There is also plenty of ‘human interest’ whether in terms of the spectacular financial rewards and acclaim obtained by leading garden designers or, at the other end of the scale, the harsh working conditions endured by most garden staff (exacerbated by the iron discipline imposed both in and outside working hours and the grim barrack-like ‘bothy’ they had to live in).

The subject is treated with the full academic rigour to be expected from an author with Floud’s foremost scholastic distinction, but no prior knowledge is needed to enjoy this book. His masterly exposition is impressively clear and comprehensible and expressed in refreshingly vigorous, unaffected and readable prose. It is also well illustrated with the emphasis on supporting the story being told rather than offer pretty horticultural images.

Specialists in garden, social and economic history will naturally be grateful for such an informative text (and one that should inspire many future explorations leading off the path Floud has blazed). But it will be enjoyed by a much wider set of audiences, particularly garden-lovers. They will find it adds welcome new intellectual and cultural dimensions to the sensual and aesthetic pleasures they already savour so greatly in the garden.

[Barry Dobson · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a gardener and lover of numbers I expected to enjoy this. Sadly no. The author has an interesting and probably useful was of converting historical monetary sums into 'current day'. He them applies this endlessly to a fairly dull history of English gardens to point out how much they cost in current day terms. After a few chapters I gave up.

I do hope somebody enjoys it because the arithmetic must have taken quite a while.