Historical Gardens

A small hill I ‘discovered’ on a bicycle ride near Goor in 2008 can now finally be identified as part of the garden layout of Wegdam.

In the course of a year I have come across very similar lion statues that can be found in Sweden, The Netherlands and Ireland. They are not only similar in shape, but they all seem to date from the third quarter of the 19th century (1850-1875). The description of the Irish garden by its owner/creator sheds light on the common source of all statues. Unsurprisingly, the source is found in Rome.

The story of the introduction of the landscape style in The Netherlands has proved to be difficult to uncover, despite many attempts. Information about the layout of those ‘new’ gardens in the form of maps or plans does not pre-date the late 1760s. Which plants were used to embellish the new type of garden with [...]

Interesting information has come to my attention in the last few months, and of course it has some bearing on the garden of Beeckestijn: avenues lined with two types of trees. On the Beeckestijn map (1772) we see such an avenue in the continuation of the central axis at the end of the garden, right [...]

Sometimes finding similarities between garden designs is just a matter of coincidence, or luck. Despite that, it always results in a feeling of accomplishment which is deserved nor appropiate. It also tends to lead to more questions than answers, which is nice, but not very helpful. This is such a case. Browsing through one of [...]

You may ask yourself: “What does a picture of the moon have to do with historical gardens?”. My answer: more than you presumably think (and the fact that it is a great picture is in itself reason enough to show it here).1 For example: for centuries gardeners have loosely scheduled large portions of their work [...]

The Dutch ministry of agriculture, nature and food quality (LNV) has presented an updated list of estates, falling under the Natuurschoonwet, which are open to the public. The Natuurschoonwet (difficult to translate) basically concerns a law, introduced in 1928 with the aim to protect estates by giving the owner fiscal benefits when they present suitable [...]