The Formal Garden in England

This 1892 second edition champions classical, structured gardens in harmony with a house's architecture, challenging the movement towards 'wild gardens'.

Reginald Theodore Blomfield (Author), F. Inigo Thomas (Illustrated by)

9781108061407, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 August 2013

284 pages, 67 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm, 0.36 kg

First published in 1892, this work by the architect Reginald Theodore Blomfield (1856–1942), illustrated by Francis Inigo Thomas (1865–1950), uses historical evidence to vindicate a classical approach to garden design, in which a house and its surroundings are kept in harmony. It is a response to the work of the gardener and journalist William Robinson (1838–1935), who had written vehemently in favour of romantic, naturalistic gardens. Closely linked to the burgeoning Arts and Crafts movement as secretary to the Art-Workers' Guild under William Morris' presidency, Blomfield had developed a theory of garden design which held that it should be a reflection of architectural order: honest, vernacular simplicity as opposed to the 'wild garden'. Illustrative of the contemporary debate between architects and plantsmen, this instructive text, reissued in its second edition of 1892, captures a moment in this developing relationship in the years before Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll gave it new harmony.

Preface to second edition
Preface to first edition
1. The formal method and the landscape gardener
2. The formal garden in England
3. The formal garden (cont.)
4. The end of the formal garden and the landscape school
5. The courts, terraces, walks
6. Knots, parterres, grass-work, mounts, bowling-greens, theatres
7. Fish-ponds, pleaching, arbours, galleries, hedges, palisades, groves
8. Garden architecture
9. Garden architecture (cont.)
10. Conclusion
Appendices 1–3
Index.

Subject Areas: Architecture [AM]