Silk, water, iron and smoke: gardens of industrial improvement

About This Event

A gunmaker and a botanic garden, a potter with a Chinese bridge, a cotton spinner allowed to sail on a canal by Act of Parliament, a steam engine pumping water to irrigate a toymaker's trees, an ironmaster grafting currants on Buckthorn.

Contrary to Victorian and later sensibilities, the industrial was frequently embraced in the Georgian garden aesthetic, often creating a multi-sensory, often sublime experience. People were fascinated by new inventions, by the science and engineering driving the Industrial Revolution. When these were combined in the context of a designed landscape, the grand project of improvement achieved a synthesis of the aesthetic and the productive. Architecture, water, planting, the journey to and through the landscape all contributed to an integration of the ornamental and industrial. 

This talk, by Dr. Dianne Long, Chair of the DGT Conservation Committee and a previous Chair of the Trust, explores how the industrial in the Georgian garden often co-existed far more than might have hitherto been considered.

Tea, coffee and cake will be served after the talk.