From the Chair
Greetings! In the last few weeks of February the gardens were fast forwarding to summer. It was a bit odd to see my sheets of snowdrops and hellebores on a day when the temperature hit 20 degrees. Many of you will have taken advantage of the warm weather to get in your gardens or to visit the many spring flowering gardens and parklands. To continue the theme of summer Rosemary Jury has produced a varied and interesting programme of excellent visits which we hope many of you will sign up to and of course we still have a talk on Geoffrey Jellicoe by Kate Harwood on Saturday 27th April at 2.30 in the County Museum, Aylesbury.
The number of BGT members is 191 and of these 30 have taken out Life Membership (30) perhaps because it is such good value at £150. Out of the 191 we have 65 joint members, 91 single members and 4 groups plus one Honorary Member. Most new members are introduced by present members or through History Fairs or talks by the committee. So if you have someone who is interested do bring them along for a “taster” event and perhaps they will sign up.
Sales of our first book: Humphry Repton in Buckinghamshire and Beyond, are buoyant with a large number (20) selling at the Repton Revealed conference at the Garden Museum, Lambeth in November. We printed 200 copies and have 100 left. If you do not have your personal copy then they are available from Rosemary Jury (£20 + £3 postage) or at the lecture in April. They make excellent presents for those interested in Bucks history.
The Research and Recording Group (R & R) besides focusing on individual sites of importance in historic Bucks is beginning to gather material on a new project to look at Artists’ Gardens and how they used them in their artworks and gardened them. We have identified a surprising number of artists and Bucks Museum staff have been extremely helpful in Paul Nash Barbara in the Garden 1913/14 (Tate) allowing access to a number of really special art works they have in their collection. Claire de Carle is organising an R & R introductory training event at St Katherine’s, Parmoor at the end of March and looking at further training days in the north of the county. The R & R has recently been awarded a grant of £1,500 by Buckinghamshire County Council who value the work undertaken and its use in assessing the effects of change proposed in planning applications.
With this newsletter are booking forms for future events and the membership subscription form. We look forward to seeing you all at one or many of the events that have been organised for the spring and summer.
Dr Sarah Rutherford
Chair of Bucks GT
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