GARDENING IN THE GRAND MANNER
GARDENER TO QUEEN ANNE, by. David reen; Oxford niversity Press, Geoffrey Cumberlege, English price 70/-. HIS is an elaborate and scholarly work describing the planning and establishment of six of the greatest formal gardens in England during the late 17th and the early 18th century. The author became interested in the central human subject-Henry Wisewhen he was working on the Marlborough papers preparing his work on
Blenheim Palace, published in 1951; the man who was the planner and designer of the magnificent gardens deserved, Mr. Green decided as his research disclosed more and more of the man’s character, "a more ample monument than the black slab which commemorates him at Warwick." (continued on next. page)
BOOKS
(continued from previous page) A biography of Henry Wise took shape and grew during the years since the publication of Blenheim Palace; it now appears as a handsome large book -about the general proportions and weight of a volume of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Dictionary of Garden-ing-dealing very thoroughly with the chosen period and those most famous royal and ducal gardens that came under Henry Wise’s imaginative care. In its scope the book is a good deal more than a biography of Henry Wise; it is also a closely-documented domestic history of the times as lived by those wearing lace and velvet-kings and queens, dukes and duchesses, and those in their favour. From the point of view of the descendants of Henry Wise, it must indeed seem an ample monument; and to the reader interested in formal gardening on the
grand scale it is a treasure-store packed with fascinating and unexpected detail. The dust-jacket of this book carries a drawing by the New Zealander Felix Kelly-an alcove in the kitchen garden at Blenheim showing the 14-foot walls planned by Vanbrugh and Wise; these walls are pitted with holes used for two hundred years and more by generations of gardeners for fastening up their espaliers-a detail of the fascinating kind, to the gardening reader, to be found on almost every page of the book. In addition, there is a drawing by Felix Kelly of the crest granted to Wise in 1720; and at the end of the book, in a separate section, there are 53 reproductions of plans, gardeners’ designs, artists’ impressions, and modern photographs of the famous gardens described in the book. Gardener to Queen Anne is not likely to be a popular book-its size and price are against it-but those who are interested in the particular magnificence of
the formal garden will be thankful to Mr. Green for his painstaking researches and will find great pleasure in his work.
J.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 899, 26 October 1956, Page 13
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442GARDENING IN THE GRAND MANNER New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 899, 26 October 1956, Page 13
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