Gielgud traces garden history

Press, 26 August 1980, Page 15

Gielgud traces garden history

In seven half-hour films, “The English Garden,” presented by Sir John Gielgud, traces the history of the English gardening tradition, from, earliest times until the present day.

The first screens tomorrow on One.

The series is presented by Sir John Gielgud, and makes use of extensive helicopter footage to display the magnificent acres age of England’s great gardens to best effect. In making the programmes, the production team visited hundreds of gardens up and down England, many of them, like that of Queen Victoria’s palace at Osborne in the Isle of Wight, not open to the public today. In the first programme, “A Tapestry of Herbs and Roses” to 1660, Sir John Gielgud looks at the Roman times through to 1660 when the decision of Charles II gave new life to English gardening after the Civil War, with monastic herb-gardens and late medieval knot-gar-dens.

Away from the cruel violence of the Middle Ages, noble. lords and abbots cultivated simple plots of herbs and roses. But as medieval 'strife gave way to peace, formal gardens became a feature of every country house, with patterned walks and flowerbeds, where in Stuart times, owners displayed the latest development of the enormously popular tulip.