The History Of Gunnersbury Park & Its Gardens
Val Bott lecture will be part of the London Parks & Gardens Trust series
Val Bott will be giving a presentation on the history of the garden landscapes of Gunnersbury Park as part of the London Parks & Gardens Trust programme of Winter Lectures.
This takes place on Monday 10 December between 6:30pm and 8pm at The Gardens Trust, 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ. All are welcome. The cost is £12 for non-members, including a glass of wine. Tickets are on sale on he Trust's website at £12, or £10 to members.
Val will be using the research for the book on Gunnersbury Park which she wrote with James Wisdom and which was published by Scala earlier this year. The story runs from the mediaeval and Tudor owners of a farming estate, through the transformation made by lawyer, Sir John Maynard, who built a huge mansion with formal gardens in about 1660, with a new transformation into a less formal landscape by 18th century owners and the massive change which came about in 1800 when the estate began to be sold off in separate building plots. A great deal of what can be seen today is part of another transformation when the Rothschild family extended the estate and invested substantially in the buildings and the gardens as well as the impact upon the estate of its transformation into a public park in 1926.
The talk will also include the fruits of new research on the 18th and 19th century gardens. Over the years garden history experts have struggled to define which owners made substantial changes to the landscape at Gunnersbury - the new findings will be revealed for the first time as part of the talk.
December 5, 2018