The walled garden was once an essential component of every country house, its shelter providing ideal conditions for growing food, flowers, and medicine. This book from the National Trust looks at walled gardens throughout England and Wales and explores their history, innovative design, and cultural heritage. Walled gardens are a feature of British gardening history. In the late 18th century, gardens became status symbols, with aristocrats vying to grow ever more exotic fruits—ushering in innovations such as glasshouses and even heated walls. With the First and Second World Wars many of these gardens fell into disrepair, but renovated ones feature at many key National Trust properties and remain a source of pride and fascination today.
As my long suffering husband knows, I love walled gardens. I love visiting them at all times of the year and seeing what they are growing and producing. This book has inspired me to visit more and maybe even plan holidays based on the best examples!!
More escapist gardenage for the lockdown bookcase. For a compact, beautifully-produced book this has a pleasing amount of historical discussion and detail, so the reader can get to know their pineapple pits, "crinkle-crankle" walls and frost gates. Divided into two parts ("Walled Gardens in Time and Space" and "Exploring Walled Gardens"), the book offers thematic features on, say, glasshouses, or water and the walled garden, as well as focusing on such examples as, inter alia, Llanerchaeron, Easton and Chartwell.