Historical Gardens

A 19th century mixed avenue consisting of horse chestnut and common lime. That’s all.

Lion statues found at the Scott fountain in Detroit’s Belle Isle Park are inspired by ancient Egyptian statues now located in Rome. But copies of these Palatine lions already appeared in Europe decades earlier. The precise connection between them all remains uncertain.

While the World War II bunkers at Beeckestijn are buried forever, the bunkers at Toorenvliedt are made visible. One of them is even turned into a WW II information center. An idea to introduce at other locations?

There is a lot to tell about Beeckestijn at the moment, since it has entered yet a new stage in its development. The estate has finally been transferred to its destined owners: Natuurmonumenten and Vereniging Hendrik de Keyser. More about that and several other developments must wait, till I have time. Today I just wanted [...]

In the previous post I expressed my dismay about the abolishment of visually important elements in a Spanish park, after it was restored or renovated. But Spain is of course not alone in this. We have our own examples in Holland. A few years ago, for instance, things looked good for Duinlust, near Haarlem. A [...]

An original design feature in the Jardínes de Pedro Luis Alonso in Málaga has not been replanted during the recent reconstruction of the park.

You have to love the interwebs: it is so great to have access to such essential sources as old maps of Kew Gardens. More in Kew Garden’s From the Archives set on flickr. And in their photostream, of course! Edited because I can’t even spell some 40 words correctly.

The drawing of how the 2700 year old garden at Ramat Rachel (an amazing find) could have looked like, is actually an almost exact copy of an artefact in the British Museum.
Keep digging fellas!