I have long been a fan of – and cheerleader for – the forest school movement. That is why I am happy to give my support to Love Trees Love Wood – a new crowdfunding initiative that aims to spread its reach and impact. And I am inviting you to do the same.
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Last week we looked at creation and reception of the 1943 County of London Plan. It was a reminder of a time when democratic politics wasn’t viewed with contempt but was understood as a form of collective expression and – for some (for very many in the 1940s) – as a means of making a better world. That’s a language you hardly hear nowadays but maybe we should bring it back into fashion.
The language of JH Forshaw and Patrick Abercrombie in the Plan was generally more measured. The tone is bureaucratic, almost technocratic and their overall approach is flagged in their first chapter, ‘Social Groupings and Major Use Zones’. They saw the city as an agglomeration of zones with varying functions which had hitherto been inadequately separated or insensitively connected.
Coloured Plate 1: Social and Functional Analysis
In particular, they identified a ‘highly organised and inter-related system of…
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We amble down the meandering drive, surrounded by mature trees and meadowlands, curious cows observing our passing, a couple of the house dogs trot out aimiably to inspect us, the birdsong is intense… the charm of Country House visiting in Ireland.
We enter the courtyard to pay our fee and it is immediately clear that this is no ordinary garden visit – the hand and eye of an artist is at work, small tableaux abound.
This is Burtown House and Gardens, the home of the late Wendy Walsh, one of Ireland’s best botanical artists, her daughter Lesley Fennell, an artist, and her son James Fennell, a highly regarded photographer; a family home, still in the hands of the family that built it in the early 18th century.
The wonderful herbaceous borders lie at the rear of the house, orchestrated yet exuberant in colour – poppies, nepeta, peonies, geraniums, a feast…
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Having been Visitor Services Trainee at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse for over three months now, I have spent many days in our museum shop processing tickets and museum passes whether it’s an event day, ‘A Day With A Difference’ or an ordinary day. This also entails greeting visitors and informing them about the layout of the site. Not forgetting serving visitors wanting to pay for items selected from our vast array of gifts and workhouse paraphernalia, ranging from postcards to furry toy animals!
However on the quiet days, which are usually either rainy days or the day before an event, I usually have a spare minute to wonder what our museum shop was originally used for. It has always had the name of Porter’s Lodge. When Gressenhall was a Victorian workhouse, people would ring the bell or the knocker on the porter’s gate in order to gain admittance to the…
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Great landscapers of the past, building the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or the sublime Versailles, I am sure would have answered “Yes” without hesitation. A walk through Vaux-le-Vicomte, Powerscourt, Ryoanji, the Alhambra.. evokes the same response of awe and joy as any work of art, a feeling that something with passion and soul has been created.
art1
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In the week that we celebrate the sixty-sixth anniversary of the National Health Service, it’s appropriate to look another aspect of the hopes for a better and fairer Britain that many believed must emerge from wartime sacrifice and destruction.
The County of London Plan was commissioned by the London County Council, written by JH Forshaw (Chief Architect to the LCC) and Patrick Abercrombie (the most famous town planner of his day and Professor of Town Planning at University College, London) and published in 1943. It was a bold and comprehensive reimagining of the capital and, though most of its specific proposals were quickly forgotten in the austerity and necessary pragmatism of the post-war years, we should recall its ideals and vision – and perhaps learn from them too.
I can only give a brief taste of the Plan here. It’s a richly illustrated hardback of some 188 folio pages. That…
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Nigel Boldero aka 'Old School Gardener'
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