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A Little History of British Gardening

Jenny Uglow

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Did the Romans have rakes? Did the monks get muddy? Did the potato seem really, really weird when it arrived on our shores? This 'potted' history of gardening in Britain takes us on a garden tour from the thorn hedges around prehistoric settlements to the rage for ornamental grasses and 'outdoor rooms' today. It tracks down the ordinary folk who worked the earth - the apprentice boys and weeding women, the florists and nursery gardeners - as well as aristocrats and grand designers and famous plant-hunters.

Synopsis

A Little History of British Gardening by Jenny Uglow

Coloured by Jenny Uglow's own love for plants, and brought to life in the many vivid illustrations, this book deals not only with flowery meads, grottoes and vistas, landscapes and ha-has, parks and allotments, but tells you, for example, how the Tudors made their curious knots; how housewives used herbs to stop freckles; how the suburbs dug for victory in World War II. With a brief guide to particular historic or evocative gardens open to the public, this is a book to put in your pocket when planning a summer day out - but also to read in your deckchair with a glass of cold wine, when dead-heading is simply too much.

Reviews

'Uglow's account of a national obsession is a delight from beginning to end' The Observer

'This book will be a joy for any gardener' The Independent

'The biographer of Gaskell and Hogarth now takes us into the garden, where plants glow and miniature landscapes unfold at the touch of her easy prose' Sunday Telegraph

'Enchanting, stirringly evocative and fascinating' Daily Mail

'Elegant history...It is beautifully written and lets you see your own humble plot in its historical and geographical context' Daily Telegraph

About the Author

Jenny Uglow grew up in Cumbria, and then Dorset. After leaving Oxford, she worked in publishing and is now an Editorial Director of Chatto and Windus, part of Random House. She reviews for radio and for the Times Literary Supplement, Sunday Times and the Guardian, and acts as historical consultant on several BBC 'classic serials', including Wives and Daughters, The Way We Live Now, Daniel Deronda, and the forthcoming Trollope adaptation He Knew He Was Right. Jenny is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, was on the Advisory Group for the Humanities of the British Library, and is Vice-President of the Gaskell Society and an Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of Warwick.

Her own books include The Macmillan Dictionary of Women, now preparing its fourth edition; studies of George Eliot and Henry Fielding and the biographies Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories (1992) and Hogarth: A Life and a World (1997), both shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize, and Cultural Babbage: Time, Technology and Invention, co-edited with Francis Spufford. Her book The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future (2002), told the story of the colourful Lunar Society of Birmingham, including Matthew Boulton and James Watt, Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley and Erasmus Darwin - grandfather of Charles. Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick was published in October 2006.

Jenny is married to Steve Uglow, Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Kent: they have four children and live in Canterbury, Kent.

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Book Info

Publication date

6th April 2017

Author

Jenny Uglow

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recommendations

Author's Website

www.jennyuglow.com/

Publisher

Chatto & Windus an imprint of Vintage Publishing

Format

Hardback
384 pages

ISBN

9781784740313

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