Bicentenary of Humphry Repton’s Death Commemorated
Welcome to our Spring 2018 Newsletter. Buckinghamshire Garden Trust has not been idle over the last 12 months. Volunteers have been enjoying much varied research and our new Planning Co-ordinator Jo Mirzoeff has been offering advice to local authorities on planning cases for parks and gardens in Bucks. Many members will have enjoyed participating in an excellent and well-attended programme of walks and talks organised by our Events and membership Secretary, Rosemary Jury.
In our research we have been actively engaged in researching the 15 Humphrey Repton sites in historic Buckinghamshire for the forthcoming publication, Humphry Repton: Just what did he do for us in Bucks? Our research proved that he probably only advised at a dozen of the 15. If you were an estate owner you might have received the business card above. The 24th March 1818 will be the bicentenary of Humphry Repton’s death. As the last great landscape designer of the eighteenth century he advised at around 400 hundred parks and gardens (so he said) with the avowed intention to become the design successor to the great Capability Brown. He was famous for his beguiling “Red Books” presenting his proposed improvements showing “before” and “after” sketches and watercolours via a system of flaps. BGT researchers have tracked down four of these for Buckinghamshire sites. However, others are much more elusive and for some such as West Wycombe we have only information from his books. We will be publishing the fruits of all our hard work on Repton in August, both as a real book and online.
Congratulations to Charles Boot, a founder member of BGT and the Chairman for 17 years, who was awarded by The Garden Trust “The Gilly Drummond Volunteer of the Year 2017” for his “total enthusiasm” and “inestimable, always going the extra mile”.He was presented with the award by Dominic Cole, the GT President at the Plymouth AGM in August
With the changes in Data Protection Regulations you will see with this mailing that we need all members to complete and sign a consent form to ensure we comply with the new regulations and you can receive information e-mails from BGT.
Rosemary has produced a marvellous programme for the summer which we hope you will be able to attend. Many thanks to her for all her unstinting work. There are also many events celebrating Repton including a conference at Ashridge in August.
Dr Sarah Rutherford
Chair of Bucks GT
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