For more details about any of the Open Gardens please call
Georgina Holloway on 01328 700514
OR
e-mail [email protected]
AND THEN PERHAPS
read about the innovative Tradescant family of gardeners who were designing gardens about 100 years before Capabilty Brown
read about the innovative Tradescant family of gardeners who were designing gardens about 100 years before Capabilty Brown
John Tradescant the Elder (c. 1570s – 15–16 April 1638), father of John Tradescant the younger, was an English naturalist, gardener, collector and traveller, probably born in Suffolk, England. He began his career as head gardener to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury at Hatfield House, who initiated Tradescant in travelling by sending him to the low Countries for fruit trees in 1610/11. He was kept on by Robert's son William, to produce gardens at the family's London house, Salisbury House. He then designed gardens on the site of St Augustine's Abbey for Edward Lord Wotton in 1615-23. Later, Tradescant was gardener to the royal favourite George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, remodelling his gardens at New Hall, Essex and at Burley-on-the- Hill. After Buckingham's assassination in 1628, he was then engaged in 1630 by King Charles 1 to be Keeper of his Majesty's Gardens, Vines and Silkworms at his queen's minor palace, Oatlands Place in Surrey.
On all his trips he collected seeds and bulbs everywhere and also assembled a collection of curiosities of natural history and ethnography which he housed in a large house, "The Ark", in Lambeth, London. The Ark was the prototypical "Cabinet of Curiosity ", a collection of rare and strange objects, that became the first museum open to the public in England, the Museum Tradescantianum,.
He also gathered specimens through American colonists and with his friend (John Smith) and his son and introduced many plants into English gardens that have become part of the modern gardener's repertory. A genus of flowering plants (Tradescantia) is named to honour him.
He was buried in the churchyard of St-Mary-at-Lambeth, as was his son. The churchyard is now established as the Garden Museum.
On all his trips he collected seeds and bulbs everywhere and also assembled a collection of curiosities of natural history and ethnography which he housed in a large house, "The Ark", in Lambeth, London. The Ark was the prototypical "Cabinet of Curiosity ", a collection of rare and strange objects, that became the first museum open to the public in England, the Museum Tradescantianum,.
He also gathered specimens through American colonists and with his friend (John Smith) and his son and introduced many plants into English gardens that have become part of the modern gardener's repertory. A genus of flowering plants (Tradescantia) is named to honour him.
He was buried in the churchyard of St-Mary-at-Lambeth, as was his son. The churchyard is now established as the Garden Museum.
John Tradescant the Younger 1608 – 1662), son of John Tradescant the elder, was a botanist and gardener, born in Meopham, Kent and educated at The Kings School, Canterbury. Like his father, who collected specimens and rarities on his many trips abroad, he undertook collecting expeditions to Virginia between 1628 and 1637. Among the seeds he brought back, to introduce to English gardens were great American trees, like Magnolias, Tulip Tree, and garden plants such as phlox and asters. When his father died, he succeeded as head gardener to Charles 1 and Henrietta Maria of of France.