Drawing on the enormous quantity of material available in the Woburn Archives, as well as the historic images and details preserved in the art in the Abbey itself, this book describes how the park and gardens developed, following wider trends in landscaping as well as the individual tastes of the successive dukes and duchesses. It also places the significant developments in the park and gardens in the context of the other gardens built at the time. Almost all of the important figures in English landscaping—from Isaac de Caus to George London and Henry Wise, Charles Bridgeman, and Humphry Repton—worked for the Bedford family at one time or another. In our own time, a 10-year program of restoration of Repton's Pleasure Gardens initiated by the present Duchess is under way. When this is finished, in 2018, the result will be the most complete Repton pleasure grounds anywhere in the world. In this book Keir Davidson weaves specific and wider themes together in a way that brings the whole enthralling story to life, engaging the reader with historic gardens that are not simply part of a lost past, but can be experienced today.

Woburn Abbey: The Park & Gardens

History

Davidson, Keir

Europe

Pimpernel Press

<p>The story of how the 6th Duke of Bedford and his second wife, Georgina Gordon, became intimately involved with the scientific discoveries of the Enlightenment, the joys of Romantic poetry and painting - and the leading figures of both worlds\nThis book tells the story of two very different people, John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford (1766-1839) and his second wife, Georgina Gordon (1781-1853), their unlikely marriage and its improbable results, as, together, they began to explore the new worlds of aesthetics and science that were being opened up by the discoveries of the Enlightenment and the sensibilities of the Romantic Age.\nThe book explores how different their early lives were and the initial years of their marriage as they established themselves as Duke and Duchess; the Duke’s pursuit of horticultural and botanical science both at Woburn and as a sponsor of plant hunters abroad; the Duchess’s celebration and re-creation of vanishing aspects of traditional Highland life; their connections with such key figures as Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir William Hooker and Charles Darwin - and the central role played in their lives by the artist Edwin Landseer.\nTheir legacy stands to this day as a lasting testament to their pioneering spirit, improbable though it may have been, and the influences of the Romantic Age that animated their lives.</p>

Improbable Pioneers of the Romantic Age: The Lives of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford and Georgina Gordon, Duchess of Bedford

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Until the mid-eighteenth century, Britain’s barren mountains were regarded with fear by all thoughtful people. The romantic movement, with its cult of the ‘sublime’ and of the ‘picturesque’, modified this perception, and the mountainous regions of Wales, the Lake District, and even Scotland, became fashionable to visit and to admire for their ‘beauty, horror and immensity’.   But these tourists never left the well-beaten and recommended path. They did not venture into the hills themselves. Only miners and quarrymen, or shepherds with sheep to find, or pack-horse drivers did that. And when the first eccentric visitors asked to be guided to the summits the locals were amazed and bemused.   When Coleridge, wild, unconventional and physically fearless, arrived to join the Wordsworths in the Lakes in 1799, he immediately set out onto the high fells on his own. His records of these explorations, in his notes and in letters, particularly to his beloved but unattainable Sara Hutchinson, provide a totally new and modern appreciation and understanding of the mountain landscape.   Helvellyn, Skiddaw and most of the now popular summits were visited by him alone, without maps or any equipment beyond his notebook in which he scribbled his impressions and his reactions―‘O joy for me’ he jotted on first seeing Ullswater from the top of Great Dodd. It was not till the very end of the nineteenth century that solitary walking on the fells became acceptable, and then, almost overnight, universally popular and fashionable.   This book explores and explains the experiences of a true pioneer and one of Britain’s greatest and most remarkable creative spirits.

O Joy for me!: Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Origins of Fell–Walking in the Lake District 1790-1802

Science & Math

Nature & Ecology

Wilmington Square Books

This book examines the design style of the medieval Japanese Zen monk Muso Soseki (1275-1351), who built gardens as places to meditate and to escape his busy public life. A Zen Life in Nature begins with a discussion of Soseki's rural upbringing and the spiritual background to it, his quest for enlightenment as a Zen monk and his role as mediator in the turbulent times that surrounded the Kemmu Restoration and the establishment of the Ashikaga shogunate. Other chapters look at the spiritual and cultural influences that are crucial to understanding Soseki's aesthetic and design sense and the development of his garden building. Finally, the book provides a detailed look at the beautiful Upper Garden at Saihoji, built by Soseki in 1339.

A Zen Life in Nature: Muso Soseki in His Gardens (Volume 56) (Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies)

Community & Culture

U of M Center For Japanese Studies

A Zen Life in Nature: Muso Soseki in His Gardens (Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies) (Volume 56)

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