Historical Gardens

Pavillon de Hanovre in the park of Sceaux is not rebuilt in 1932, as many sources write. The relocated pavilion became a new building, perfectly suited for its new setting.

The restoration of the theekoepel at Land en Bosch has been completed. Photos of before and after presented here.

Statues dated 1866 made me think about how that section of the gardens at Saint-Cloud related to the 1870 destruction of the castle by fire. It must have been an early renovation of the Le Notre layout.

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 [...]

Land en Bosch was bought by Natuurmonumenten in December 2007, as mentioned in this earlier post. It is part of a large group of estates the organisation owns in ‘s-Graveland. Natuurmonumenten has since then been preparing the estate for public entrance (in parts of the garden). Most of that work has remained unseen, and will [...]

The strips of corten steel that are used to (re)create parterres de broderie are purely functional. Somehow -and to my dismay- the increasing interest in steel as a gardening material seems to result in ugly rims of steel around box hedges.

Schaep en Burgh, the most northern of the estates in ‘s-Graveland, is currently being restored by its owner Natuurmonumenten. The estate, which originated in the 17th century, had been remodeled in 1818 into a landscape garden by architect J. D. Zocher Jr. Natuurmonumenten are now using a map from around 1820 as a guideline for [...]

Around a month ago a large ‘auction’ of landscape features in The Netherlands was announced, in an attempt to rake in more money to protect and maintain these vital landscapes. A website is available where people can bid for their favourite piece of landscape. People do not actually buy a piece of land or countryside, [...]