British Gardening History
@britgardhistory
I'm Karen Meadows, a garden history writer living in the heart of England. Publishing 'The Lost Apples of Stamford - a Detective Story' 2025.
Meet gorgeous Lady Lennox - believed lost for 110 years and now confirmed found by the Fruit ID committee! Local pomologist Denis Smith discovered it growing at Burghley and I slowly managed to unravel its provenance. Absolutely thrilled our submission has been successful.
It wasn't until the mid 1920s that Augustus John began painting flowers as an alternative to portraiture; this Begonia (1928) would have been grown in the garden at Fryern Court, John's home on the edge of the New Forest.
Haymaking, Porlock Vale by Harold Septimus Power #Somerset
Hop pickers in Kent in 1940 put their kids in a trench as the battle of Britain rages over head!
Hop picking in Yalding, Kent, 1944. Londoners from the East End joined locals for several weeks each summer, staying in tin huts with straw mattresses and cooking on camp-fires. Despite the hard work, it was remembered with fondness by many London children.
Apple nik named “Gravediggers 👻 ghost” an apple I found in an old cemetery one winters day and collected a few scions , strangely on checking back on the tree it’s strangely disappeared, no tree, no stump , no ground disturbance , I keep checking back
Ivy-leaved toadflax growing on an #Oxford wall💜 Its 17th century name was ‘Oxford ivy' or 'Oxford weed’ because it was thought to have arrived from Italy via the packaging of a marble statue destined for an Oxford college garden💜🐸💜🐸
'The Woodcutter and the Bees' - another beautiful and little known painting by Evelyn Dunbar, spring 1933
Beurré Bedford #pear after this morning's deluge. Raised by the Laxton Brothers in Bedford, England in 1902 as a result of a cross between Marie-Louise and Durondeau. Introduced 1921. This is the first year the tree has fruited. I hope the wasps & jackdaws leave me some. 🍐🍐🍐
Farmer, Tom Herring with his old sheepdog in his orchard at Walterstone #Herefordshire c 1975 (Philip Dunn / Mary Evans Picture Library) #ruralhistory 🏴
'City of London Skies and Flowers (Roofs of High Holborn)' (1936) by Lily Joseph (Private collection)