Welcome to the garden history blog

It has been running since 2013 and is written  by Dr David Marsh, who discovered garden history in the last century and has been learning and spreading the woird about it ever since.

It is planned to come out before breakfast time on Saturday mornings, and to inspire, amuse or cajole you into finding out more about the fascinating world of garden history in its broadest sense.

You’ll find a full list of the previous posts – currently well over 500 of them so far – which cover a wide range of topics from mechanical elephants to roof gardens, and  from slum clearance to the worlds oldest pot plant, via many individual historic sites,  significant garden designers, artists  and owners – on the Topics page…or just do a word search and see what crops up! Incidentally the posts on here not usually intended to be ephemeral or topical pieces but good starting points and they usually include useful references  for further reading or research.

Comments on previous posts and subjects always welcome as are ideas and suggestions for future ones…although remember it is only one busy person [despite the contrary appearance given by the photo!] researching and writing on top of my teaching committments and a 5 acre garden!

You can contact me via david@thegardenhistoryblog.org

WHO AM I?

I am now Course Director for an MA in Garden History and an honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham and am also able to supervise PhD students! Click here for details. I also regularly give talks about garden history, and other things to all sorts of groups from horticultural socities and U3A groups to  conferences and academic groups. You can find more details at https://gardenhistorytalks.com

I was until very recently a trustee of the Gardens Trust, the national campaigning body for the protection and support of our historic parks, gardens and designed landscapes.  Before that I was a trustee of Parks and Gardens UK and from 2011-2022 I was one of the  convenors of the History of Gardens and Landscapes seminar at the Institute of Historical Research  at the University of London. For their current programme see … http://www.history.ac.uk/events/seminars/121

And just in case you think it’s all rather theoretical I also try and run a 5 acre garden in western France, which my partner and I open to the public.