I absolutely love wandering around a historic house and garden. I like the delightful window into a historical world that these opportunities provide. The National Trust today boasts having over 500 historic properties, gardens and nature reserves that everyone will be able to access and enjoy forever and there are many others looked after by Historic England and private organisations. In the Georgian areas of the city where I live, many traces of the historic gardens and distinctive garden walls are still visible, and the Victorian suburbs largely retain the space for their gardens but have few traces of how they may have been laid out. Some of my favourite places to visit were built slightly later, in the Arts & Crafts period, where house designs began to incorporate connections to gardens as extensions of living spaces.
Gardens have had many functions throughout history, from growing food and plants for medicinal use to showing off wealth and keeping pets. Over time, they have followed trends including Italianate influences such as incorporating statues, water features and spaces to eat al fresco or in larger properties, French influences like tree lined drives, formal parterres and topiary designed to tame nature.
This meander through historic gardens will focus on relatively near historical periods that your own home may originate from, beginning with Georgian, moving on to Victorian then Arts & Crafts English Cottage gardens.
Georgian 1714 – 1837 Naturalistic designs, with framed views
Georgian gardens were primarily at the back of town houses that faced directly on to streets but spread to the front of cottages in more suburban or rural settings. They were often generous, having space for curving paths through landscaped areas. The Georgians enjoyed nature and began to move away from the more rigid parallel lines and symmetrical layouts of earlier Stuart gardens that were heavily influenced by French designs, into a more natural approach. Gardens were used for growing food and medicinal plants, but also in larger homes, there was space for including features like statues, temples, lakes or grottos as destinations for garden paths. Famously, landscape gardeners such as Capability Brown and Humphry Repton incorporated features like these into their newly-coined ‘picturesque’ designs with parkland views and long, tree-lined drives.
In ordinary homes that are somewhat less grand than the Bridgerton-type big country houses, Georgian garden ideas that can be applied to any size of garden include introducing natural looking curved garden paths and flower bed shapes into front and back gardens. Where beds are straight, using informal planting can give the naturalistic feel Georgians aspired to.
Water features like ponds can also be cut into curvy serpentine shapes. A trick to make a pond look bigger would be to make it wider from the viewpoint of the house, getting narrower as it gets further away and having clumps of plants to hide where it ends. Using combinations of evergreens with shrubs and trees that change colour in autumn creates colour and texture in flower beds and borders at all times of the year, which the Georgians enjoyed.
Georgian gardens included herbs, fruit and vegetable plants in with flowers to create informal, natural-looking beds. Lawns were too labour intensive in times before lawn mowers, so were minimised. I find flowering herbs like oregano and thyme attract pollinators that benefit the whole garden as well as looking very pretty. In restricted spaces, fruit trees can be espaliered against garden boundaries, or dwarf varieties can be sourced.
Famously, Georgians enjoyed framing views with garden features and plants. These need not be features in the garden itself, in small gardens, borrowing views of a neighbour’s tree, or views of surrounding hills would work well. ‘Eyecatchers’ such a small stone urn, or larger summer house, can be partially obscured by planting to be discovered in views. Roses were especially popular for their scent, colour and beauty
Victorian 1837 – 1901 Shaped flower beds and glass houses, filled with colourful blooms and designed to be ‘seen’
Victorians enjoyed ornamentation in their homes, and their gardens were no exception. English Heritage describes gardens of this period as being laid out in intricate symmetrical patterns using brightly coloured gravel and plants in flower beds. Exotic plants brought to England from abroad were grown in innovative new green houses as the price of glass became more affordable, and they were packed with as many multi-coloured plants as would fit. Modern day conservatories can be used in the same way, using plants with different types and sizes of foliage and plenty of different shades of green.
At small, domestic scales, back yards for the average household hosted the outdoor lavatory and places for hanging laundry and for growing vegetables. In inner city areas, these could be communal, shared by several households.
In a suburban neighbourhood, Victorian gardens may have been large enough to include space for sitting in but were very much designed instead for being ‘seen’. Colourful bedding plants were used to create densely planted displays in borders or island beds located in the centre of lawns in shapes like circles or stars. Plants became more widely available through retailers for everyone, and the Victorian garden was designed to show off new finds.
Victorians also enjoyed designing naturalistic-looking features and incorporated rockeries for ferns and newly discovered alpine plants. Using leftover brick or stone, a small rockery can be easily created in a garden for adding character. I very much looked forward to watching the unfurling of huge, self-seeded ferns in a shady, concreted part of my old garden in Spring time.
Victorians enjoyed tender geraniums, or pelargoniums, for their reliable flowers, and they were often at the centre of displays. They are versatile enough to be used as foliage in flower beds or in pots on patios, garden walls or garden tables. Dahlias, chrysanthemums and roses with large colourful blooms were also very popular.
Arts and Crafts 1901 – 1938 Garden rooms extending out from the house, natural materials and harmonious colour palettes
This period saw a return to more structured layouts, where the garden and architecture of a building would have been designed to work together. Designers such as William Morris included architectural structures such as pergolas in gardens, and the more commonly identifiable English Cottage Garden style of today emerged. These would have included the gardens of 1930s semis, expanding the suburbs in every town and city.
It was the age of craftsmanship using locally sourced natural materials with design inspiration taken from nature. This pushed back on the mass production creeping in during Victorian times. Florals and animal designs were popular for home furnishings, wallpaper and jewellery. Plants in gardens were encouraged to interact with architectural elements, hanging over or climbing structures such as pergolas. Spaces were designed to be inhabited as ‘garden rooms’ that each had their own characteristic to explore such as ponds, rock gardens or games like croquet lawns or tennis courts for the wealthiest households. Fruit trees made a comeback in early 20th Century gardens, with larger estates having orchards.
Gardens were very much seen as an extension of homes, and ideas such as cooking outside with easy access to the kitchen inside began to emerge. Patios and terraces became popular transitional spaces between house and garden. Visual connections to the garden from windows and doors was as important as these physical connections, and the ethos was always that every element of a garden should be multifunctional.
Recreation of the arts and crafts style can include incorporation of materials such as willow and hazel for structures in the garden and wooden benches or seats. Use of local, natural materials is a must, because the garden was intended to sit harmoniously within its surroundings. Structural elements such as well clipped hedges and topiary were popular, together with the winding paths and rock gardens of previous centuries.
Flower beds remained densely packed with flowers, including lavender, peonies, rosemary, and the ever-popular rose, but colours schemes were carefully designed to fall in drifts to create harmony.
Whatever period your home falls into, hopefully you have been inspired with ideas to either create a complementary garden or to incorporate a combination of styles to create a 21st century cottage garden that works for you.
At North Leeds Garden Design we’d be delighted to include some historical elements into your garden
References:
National Trust
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/who-we-are/about-us/the-history-of-the-national-trust#
English Heritage
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england/victorian/victorians-landscape/
Homes and Gardens – Georgian Garden Design
https://www.homesandgardens.com/gardens/georgian-garden-design
The Georgian Garden, Bath
https://beta.bathnes.gov.uk/georgian-garden
Homes and Gardens – Victorian Garden Design
https://www.homesandgardens.com/advice/victorian-garden-design
The Victorian Emporium
Homes and gardens – Arts and Crafts Garden Design
https://www.homesandgardens.com/gardens/arts-and-crafts-garden-design