Archive takes garden back in time
4 January 2011
A collection of Edwardian photographs, letters and other documents that lay forgotten for nearly a century has filled in a missing gap in the history of the Batsford Arboretum in Gloucestershire, an RHS recommended garden.
The historical treasure-trove was discovered by Frances Toovey, granddaughter of James Gardner, head gardener at Batsford from 1910-1918. A news item about the Arboretum in The Garden, July 2010, inspired her to look through a collection of her grandfather's papers, where she discovered a wealth of photographs and other documents relating to his former employers.
They included records from James Gardner's plant-hunting expeditions to Asia, including the Himalayas, from where he brought back a large collection of bamboos. Most of the original plants had been lost and staff had not known what cultivars were included until the records were unearthed.
'Gardner was using early examples of Phyllostachys aurea and P. nigra, growing them in combination – we tend to think of this as quite a modern innovation, but he was doing it in 1910,' said Batsford Foundation trustee Tony Russell. The Arboretum will now include the original bamboo plantings in plans to extend the gardens under a £2 million programme of investment.
Also in the archive were more than 50 original photographs including colour plates of the garden, taken a century ago when colour photography was in its infancy, as well as a number of black-and-white pictures. Many shed new light on planting schemes and layouts used in the garden, as well as providing a valuable insight into how Batsford looked 100 years ago.